Beyond the Duty Desk: What It's Really Like to Be an RA

Resident assistants, or RAs, are described on the University of New Haven website as playing “an integral role in our community by building relationships with residents, supporting students through challenges, and connecting them to campus resources.” But what really goes on behind the scenes?

Angelina Paulus, an RA for Bergami Hall, has seen a range of incidents in her three semesters on the job. In her experience, Paulus says weekends are the busiest time of the week.

“Weekends are very, very busy. You have to be very aware,” says Paulus. “This is when frat parties throw, this is when people go to the club.”

She says that although she is an RA for a strictly freshman building, she cannot be naïve to residents drinking on the weekends — even though the university’s code of conduct explicitly states: “Alcohol is not permitted in first-year residence halls or in rooms, suites or apartments in which all residents are underage students.”

According to Paulus, this policy isn’t stopping first-year students.

She said her worst experience with drinking in Bergami came during her first semester as an RA. A chair was thrown at her.

The incident began normally. During her nightly duty shifts, she walks through the building to make sure everything is operating as it should.

“I was walking around and saw trash in the hallway, so I knocked to see if it was theirs and so someone could clean it up,” she said.

A guest in the room slammed the door in her face upon realizing it was an RA, which led her to check for substances.

“The resident wound up being under the influence and got really mad,” said Paulus. “They started slamming stuff and screaming. I asked to see everyone’s ID, and the person — the main resident in the room — couldn’t find theirs.”

Paulus said the resident then took their desk chair and flung it at her.

“At that point, I had to determine that environment wasn’t safe for me.”

Not every experience is a bad one, though.

In her first semester as an RA, she also experienced an incident that taught her the value of being a resource. Paulus describes herself as “relentless” when it comes to trying to connect with even the quietest residents.

“There was a resident who was always quiet, and slowly but surely, they started to open up,” Paulus said. “I didn’t think much of it.”

The resident continued to walk in quietly but began saying hi to Paulus and even started attending her RA programs. One day, Paulus noticed irregular behavior from the resident and offered a listening ear.

“We went to another room to talk, and the person sat me down and told me that there was one particular night where I had asked them how they were — and on that night, they had found out their two best friends had committed suicide, and they were planning to leave and kill themselves,” she said. “Me asking how they were and saying, ‘I’m here for you,’ touched that person that night, and they decided to go get their dinner instead.

These are the connections that make it worth it.”

Similarly to Paulus, a first-time RA, Leigha Powell, said, “I’ve had people in this building give me moments where they say, ‘I’m glad I’ve had someone to talk to like an RA.’”

Powell said she values the community she has built in her first year as an RA — something she said made reapplying worth it.

“As a resident, you have a vague idea of what RAs do. You don’t know what the full extent is until you’re in the role,” she said.

But despite the workload, Powell continues to believe that it is worth it to become an RA.

Image by Vidhyarthi Darpan from Pixabay