红领巾瓜报

Residence Life and Educational Engagement

Residence Life and Educational Engagement continued to apply a student-centered and innovative mindset during the 2023-24 academic year. Retention of staff (full time, graduate level, and student workers) continue to be a strong area. We retained 100% of the graduate level staff that were not graduating. In addition to that, we retained over 65% of our Resident Assistant team. Two new student positions were added to the Educational Engagement area as a means of supporting the retention work we are doing.

Because of the large number of upperclassmen students who wanted to continue living on campus, we reassigned the first floor of The Suites to returning students, along with the entire building of The Flats. This increased demand for on-campus housing from returners strongly correlates with the engagement efforts of our RA and professional staff, as well as the high value students place on safety and the overall convenience of living on campus. With the ever-changing numbers and demographics of students, we continue to evaluate our engagement efforts to meet the students where they are at. Over the last few years, we have learned that students engage well with us online before they feel comfortable engaging with us in person. Because of this, we modified our 鈥渋ntentional conversations鈥� with residents to begin with a survey instead, and saw great success with the number of student responses. 

Along with Shocker Surveys, we continued to do large-scale social programming in the halls to create fun opportunities for students to engage with one another, meet people, and get to know the university.

In addition to our intentional engagement efforts and social programming, the Residence Life team also conducted roommate agreement conversations for every room. This allows residents to engage in a mature conversation about what it takes to successfully live with someone they do not know or haven鈥檛 lived with before. It also prevents a lot of conflict because they are encouraged to be open and honest throughout the roommate agreement process. Lastly, it sets up a great process for when there is conflict in a room, with the RA facilitating a roommate mediation with the students and referring to the roommate agreements that they signed in September. By having a mediation, they are learning conflict management, communication, and understanding of people around them. Creating opportunities for residents to learn real-life skills is something that we try to implement in all of our engagement efforts.

Shocker Surveys

With the ever-changing needs and demographics of our students, we continue to evaluate our engagement efforts to meet the students where they are at.

Over the last few years, we have learned that students engage well with us online before they feel comfortable engaging with us in person. Because of this, we have adapted our 鈥渋ntentional conversations鈥� with residents to begin with an online survey. We sent out four surveys (one per quarter) to all 1,303 of our residents. These surveys each consisted of several questions that pointed to common themes/stressors depending on the time of year. After the responses were submitted, the student staff and professional staff flagged responses that would require follow up to make sure a student is getting what they needed and is connected to the appropriate resources. There were 671 intentional follow-up conversations with residents because of these surveys, and a large majority of those were surrounding mental health, academic struggles, social struggles, and belonging. We came to know that students were a lot more honest about how they were doing in their survey response, so that when a staff member came to follow up with them, they were able to be vulnerable and share their true experiences. We will continue to evaluate and adapt our engagement efforts with students every year to best meet their needs.

Business Operations

The 2023-2024 Academic Year has been a period of significant growth and achievement for the Business Operations area. We spent much of the year assessing our processes and procedures and finding better ways to serve our residents and the larger campus community.

Our front desk area saw the addition of a new receptionist, helping elevate our customer service quality significantly. The front desk continues to be the face of Housing and Residence Life, communicating with current and prospective residents via email, phone, and in-person. The overnight desk team entered its second year and extended the desk鈥檚 quality of service to residents between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.

Business Operations also oversaw occupancy management for a record number of residents in Spring of 2024. We have been working diligently toward Fall 2024, where new challenges such as the delay in FAFSA allocation has allowed us to strengthen our connections to other departments on campus and continue to tackle problems with a focus on fostering student welfare and success.

We also overhauled our student Housing portal, giving residents greater access to relevant information on the front page of their portal. This helped us better align with university brand guidelines and accessibility standards. Changes to the backend of the housing application have also improved simplicity and transparency around the application process. These improvements also extend to changes made to the Housing website, which has been updated to include more relevant information. Additionally, our HRL chatbot was able to help answer visitor housing questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The backend of our system was overhauled to improve future billing accuracy and improve transparency between housing areas, including development of a Housing and Residence Life roadmap to track long and short term projects for the department.

Our summer camps and conferences area made significant strides in enhancing services for on-campus summer camps, as well as housing a record number of summer interns in 2024. The addition of a new graduate assistant strengthened our capabilities, allowing us to streamline operations and improve satisfaction for all guests visiting our campus. Business Operations also continued to excel in managing all hiring processes for our department and our procurement card reconciliation processes. This work has contributed to maintaining efficient financial operations and compliance with university policies.

The Business Operations area of Housing and Residence Life has achieved notable milestones during the past Academic Year. From managing unprecedented occupancy levels to enhancing front desk services and elevating our quality of service for camps and conferences, our team has demonstrated resilience, professionalism, and a commitment to serving the university community. As we look ahead, we remain dedicated to advancing Housing and Residence Life鈥檚 mission of building a home where Shockers can live, learn, and grow.

Resident Feedback

How satified are you with postal services?

• 73.8% were moderately/very satisfied
• 25% were slightly dissatisfied, neutral, or slighty satisfied

How satisfied are you with the information desk services?

• 71.7% were moderately/very satisfied
• 26.3% were slightly dissatisfied, neutral, or slighty satisfied

Email Correspondence

5,315 emails received and responded to

Between our Housing general email account and our Summer Lodging email account, HRL received and responded to over 5,000 inquiries from current and prospective students and their families, as well as individuals interested in booking a Camp or Conference summer stay.

Interns

165 summer interns

HRL housed our largest group of Summer Interns this year, topping our past numbers by more than 20! These interns are working at local companies and living with us in the Suites for the Summer term.