The abundance of bright faces during Freshman Orientation may take early-returning upperclassmen by surprise. A week before freshmen even arrive, however, Residential Life coordinates an even more intense experience involving every Resident Advisor on campus.

This ten-day-long training session for new and returning student RAs creates an atmosphere for some students reminiscent of their freshman orientation.

“Sometimes you lose a little bit of the Wes culture when you go home for the summer,” said Michael Lubrano ’09. “It brought me right back into the Wesleyan culture; freshmen get hit hard by it, but maybe upperclassman don’t get it as much. It was a really comfortable atmosphere.”

According to Residential Life Area Coordinator Brandon Buehring, who planned this year’s training schedule, building a cohesive and effective staff team was one of the seven “learning outcomes” during the week. RAs spent much of the week participating in team-building games and group activities like bowling and watching movies.

“Now we all know each other’s names,” said Peter Hill ’08. “Although it seems kind of dorky to work well with people during the year, it was actually really useful.”

In addition to training sessions on campus, Residential Life packs up the group of both new and veteran RAs on a bus to nearby Camp Wightman, located in North Stonington, Conn. While there, they spend two days living in cabins and going through leadership and social justice training in addition to canoeing, meditating, and chatting by the fireside.

“My favorite thing was we had time to do activities by the lake,” said Etse Girma ’08, a returning RA at 156 High St. “You could go canoeing or you could take a boat out. You could go swimming; it was good to see everyone out of training mode.”

The most anticipated event of the week, however, is an exercise called Behind Closed Doors.

Occurring during the final days of training, this is a series of role-played scenarios in which returning staff members act as people in typically challenging situations that RAs sometimes have to address. Scenarios include students who have been harassed, have problems with the hall, or throw large parties.

“My personal challenge [involved] walking by a lounge and two boys are playing video games,” said Aude Cuenod ’09. “They start insulting people, calling their peers names… I [needed] to make them aware of what they [were] saying, the potential harm that such conversation [could] cause. The hardest thing was to get their attention; it was incredibly realistic.”

While RAs in training go through this scenario, the rest of the students and Residential Life staff observe how they handle the situation. Afterwards, the group discusses the students’ performance, offering suggestions and critique.

“It’s really useful; it helps you understand things,” Hill said. “They tell you if your body language was correct, if you could have said other things or offered additional resources, or, if for instance you’re breaking up a party, if you could have been more forceful. It was a really powerful experience.”

Although veteran RAs went through many of the same training exercises in previous years, most agreed that their experience was better this year, in part because of the revised schedule.

“Overall it was better in that we had more time to spend with one another,” Girma said. “It seemed more relaxed; it didn’t seem as packed as it was last year.”

According to Buehring, the staff gave students a couple of half-days and days off to keep them from getting burnt out.

The biggest change from the previous year’s schedule, however, involved the new action-oriented social justice training. While a diversity trainer was brought in for only a day in previous years, the ResLife staff decided to change the format based on student feedback, and this year, social justice took up the largest amount of the schedule.

“Our main goal is to create safe, empowering, and inclusive communities that work together to confront oppression,” Buehring said. “This is a huge task, and a day of training wasn’t cutting it.”

Deans and ResLife staff informed students how to identify and confront acts of hatred, bias, and oppression within the residential communities. Several of the deans also led information sessions in order to familiarize RAs with the available student resources on campus.

“It was definitely useful; we saw [the deans’] faces, and now we say hi to them on campus,” Hill said. “It was the type of thing students probably wouldn’t want to sit through, but as RAs we should be familiar with it. Now we know who to go to.”

For Girma, her experience during training and as an RA last year was good enough that she decided to come back, which was true for the majority of the junior and senior RAs.

“As a [returning RA], it definitely felt good to know that I had a year’s experience to refer to; I also feel honored to be working with great people.”