Barely a year after their own wide-eyed arrival, many members of the class of 2008 are now freshman Resident Advisors (RAs). Despite hours of training and even a few weeks on the job, the newfound authority can take some getting used to.
“It’s a little weird because I have that title and I don’t feel any different than a sophomore at Wesleyan,” said Kim Lam ’08, an RA in Westco.
For Lam and others, it was their own RAs who inspired them to apply for the job.
“The community on my hall last year was so close that it’s really impressive,” said Alex Levy ’08, a former resident of Clark and current Clark RA. “[My RAs] were the embodiment of what I liked about Wesleyan.”
With the memories of their first year still fresh in their minds, sophomore RAs can find themselves in a perfect position to help their residents.
“I’m able to see firsthand what I was like,” said Andy Sampson ’08, an RA in Hewitt. “The naiveté that comes with being a freshman makes you so worried. I can play comforter [because] I learned the hard way.”
Other RAs said that they agreed.
“I can relate to them easier because we’re both underclassmen, but I have a little more experience,” said Ryan Moritz ’08, an RA in Westco.
Though many RAs in freshmen and sophomore housing are sophomores themselves, juniors and even seniors may stick around on the staff. Working with these seasoned experts can provide its own challenges and rewards.
“I think it’s really neat to compare experiences,” Sampson said. “My co-RA is a junior and she and I have been very good about discussing the way she handled things [in the past] and whether I thought it was the best way to handle them.”
“The returning RAs are cool,” said Glaister Leslie ’08, an RA in Butterfield C. “[They] say ‘Here’s another way to consider it,’ or ‘This happened to me last year, so here’s another solution.’ It increases the variety of responses to a lot of things that we’re trained to do.”
In Westco, on the other hand, all six RAs are new to the job.
“We actually can relate to each other more because we’re all experiencing the same new things at the same time,” Moritz said.
Celia Reddick ’06 is the Head Resident (HR) for Westco, Clark and Fauver apartments. Her job is to oversee the RAs and sometimes offer advice from her past experiences.
“Celia was my good friend Rebecca’s RA last year,” Moritz said. “I think that I drew a lot from her specifically. It’s definitely nice to have her around.”
Other new RAs were more effusive in their praise.
“Celia is like a goddess walking among men,” Levy said.
Living in halls with other sophomores and sometimes even their friends, RAs find themselves straddling the line between helping build a community and being an authoritative figure.
“I almost want to be their friend first and with that comes respect for my position, and they’ll comply and become respectful of what I need to do,” Moritz said.
Few want to be perceived as over-bearing or inaccessible.
“I want to be able to say that these aren’t just my hallmates, they’re my friends, people I can chill out with after this academic year is over,” Leslie said.
Levy and Leslie both said their specific goals were to help build the communities on their halls.
“Last Sunday [my hall] all dressed up as the British aristocracy and played croquet,” Levy said. “I made sure that for some people who were just sitting in their room, I said, ‘Hey, put on a pink pastel polo and come outside.”
After the endless hall meetings and all the new information of orientation week, the new RAs are now beginning to understand exactly how important their jobs may be.
“I didn’t really realize the role and how much impact I have on my freshmen until a couple of days ago,” Moritz said. “For a lot of [the freshmen] their RA is the first upperclassman that they have contact with, so it’s really valuable to have this person at your disposal who has a lot of information and knowledge.”
Levy seconded the opinion.
“Anything you say is accepted as fact,” she said. “It’s a strange power. If I were to say that Wesleyan was founded in 1964 by Peter, Paul and Mary, they would say, ‘Oh, cool.’”
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