Supervising Student Staff (Part 1)

“Not all those that wander are lost." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

     The reason I entitled this post "Part 1" is because I expect to comment on this facet of my position multiple times, and will hopefully in the future as well. And I say "hopefully" because I already genuinely enjoy supervising student staff members. Sure, you can check back in once they begin classes and extracurriculars and turn 21, but I expect that part not to change. Disclaimer: the RAs I supervise are amazing, understand the importance and influence of their position, and put-up with my being new to campus, my position, and supervising every day and thus must be angels.

     An expectation I set for the RAs in my building this year reads: "Be professional, and work towards skills according to the RA Competencies." Reflecting on this item, we discussed how the RA position is a paraprofessional position, and consequently they should treat it like one, taking their RA agreements and my position as their supervisor as seriously as they would any other position. They all of course nodded their heads in unison, saying "Of course, why wouldn't we?" and the like. But they probably did not grasp this item fully.

     As a colleague and I discussed this idea last night, he was actually the one to point out the difficulty for student staff's grasping true professionalism in their position. His comment opened my eyes, and much more than I expected too when I reflected this morning. His comment was on fairness - why do we expect our student staff to grasp true professionalism - at the same level we do, for the record - when they are in fact working amongst other students, developing as students and not professionals? 

     My quintessential example is scheduling RA duty for Spring Break. It never fails - there are RAs who have already made plans, have made hypothetical plans, or are planning to make plans. And then some of us as supervisors become frustrated, because their contracts clearly cover Spring Break and so they should plan to be present. Reflecting on this shifted my mindset slightly, though. Spring Break is sometimes a huge part of the college experience. Some students go on service trips, instilling a sense of serving others in them. Others go on road trips or beach trips, assisting in the development of interpersonal competencies and also plenty of personal care and responsibilities. And yet we still become frustrated when RAs want to have these experiences. Is this contradictory? I still do not believe so, but it forces me to be more understanding.

     An additional thought I have had on this topic is professional development. Some of those RA competencies are professional skills, which include knowing how to appropriately prioritize and recognizing the importance of certain tasks. Why I expected the RAs I supervise to be full-fledged professionals upon stepping into the hall is now beyond me - I'd much rather that they develop professionally, growing throughout the year. This falls into our goals of student development and supervising student staff.

Quote Citation: Tolkein, J. R. R. (1954). The fellowship of the ring. Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

Photo By: Me