Spring RA Training Blooms Team Bonding and Enthusiasm

Just as our trees on campus have popped into bloom and the Green fills with students eager to catch a frisbee or some rays of temperate weather-the Department of Residence Life took advantage of the campus's fresh springtime energy to host their annual Resident Assistant Spring Training on Sunday.

The season is not just one of renewal and growth outside, it is also a time when the Resident Assistant (RA) team begins to look inward and forward, building new bonds to prepare for the upcoming academic year. While many campuses are gearing down for finals and looking to summer break, there is an underlying buzz among the Seton Hall Residence Life staff, who are charged with welcoming and supporting students in their campus living experience in just a few short months. According to Assistant Dean for Residence Life, Mark Fabbi "Residence Life staff are the heartbeat of campus living, fostering connections, providing support, and transforming our halls into vibrant communities of belonging and possibility." At the heart of this preparatory period lies the spring training day for new Resident Assistants, a pivotal event that sets the tone for their tenure ahead.

"It was a lot of fun and made me feel really confident going into the year as a team," Angela Alvarez, a new RA for the 2024-25 academic year, shared.

Training for Training: Embracing Purpose and Responsibility

The key goal of the day is priming the staff for the true training season in summer, through which long hours of building prep and a combination of online and in-person training sessions-a novel approach this year-will equip them for the unique demands of the student leadership role. From conflict resolution to emergency response protocols, training covers many topics essential to the RA's duties. However, Assistant Director, Kendra Sherman, found that confidence-building and team-building are critical to the RAs' success in summer training and in the role, and she designed the spring training is designed to achieve these early on.

To build the incoming RA team's confidence, Area Coordinators Evan Royds and Sarah Rohleder reviewed each of the eight expectations outlined in the RA Acknowledgment, a guiding document summarizing components of the role at Seton Hall. Instead of droningly reading a document the RAs have already read and signed though, Royds and Rohleder gamified the experience with a four-corners style trivia game, getting the student leaders moving, but also solidifying factors of the agreement in their memory in order to ensure they understand the role they are entering.

On the various RA roles outlined in the acknowledgment, incoming new RA Yeurys Jr. Medrano Tatis expressed "I'm most excited to be an example for the residents. Working the front desk and making programs will help me get to know the residents more one-on-one and also make a home for them."

Following this session, each Residence Coordinator led an initial staff meeting with their new teams, with built-in reflective prompts. While new RAs explored the significance of their role in shaping the residential experience and supporting the holistic development of their peers, returning RAs considered how they can employ their skills to strengthen the new team. They delved into the core values of the RA position-empathy, integrity, inclusivity-and pledged to uphold these values in all their interactions and decision-making processes.

Breaking the Ice: Building Community Before Day One

Student affairs practitioners know icebreakers are more than just fun activities; they serve as foundational tools for fostering a sense of community and camaraderie among the RA team. Uniquely, fewer than a third of the incoming RA team members for the upcoming year are new to the role. With 44 returning RAs, only 18 spots remained and a highly competitive selection process yielded an impressive cohort of new hires. As the majority of the group, therefore, already knew each other, the challenge of community building was not in simply learning names, but in integrating the new team members and reforming patterns the returning team members had set over the year in their former hall staffs.

To facilitate these new bonds, Resident Coordinators, Ashon Lanada and Megan Murphy, developed lighthearted, but intentional, games for each hall staff to compete in together, including convoluted relay races and line dance battles. As the sun filtered through the Green Sunday afternoon, laughter and excitement filled the air while the RAs broke down barriers and built crucial peer connections. "The one where we had to push each other [on a skateboard] was so fun," Medrano Tatis said of the games. "I was not even thinking about if we were going to win, even though we did manifest that!"

Incoming Head RA (HRA), Sasha Orozco, explained how the games even further prepared her to be a peer leader on her team next year, "It allowed me to get an idea of how everyone functions-if someone prefers to take the lead or if they prefer to take the back seat. That will prepare me for summer training and the year ahead," she said. She added "I've been in Boland Hall so long, it helped me to get an understanding of my new building and think ahead to working with a new team. It was a nice way to shed the past and acclimate to everyone's personality."

Through these initial interactions, the RA bonds are formed-or for the returners, reformed-laying the groundwork for a cohesive team poised to tackle the challenges of residential life together.

Creating a Home at the Hall

The spring training day for new Resident Assistants is more than just a mandatory orientation; it's a transformative experience that lays the foundation for success in their role and helps them to begin to see themselves in the role. As the training day ended, new RAs emerged with a profound sense of purpose and returning RAs had a renewed commitment to serving their residential community. Incoming new RAs, Alvarez and Medrano Tatis, both expressed a sense of nervousness going into the training day, but affirmed that the training achieved its confidence- and community-building intention. Alvarez, currently a commuter, said, "I was not sure what to expect, but with the games-having to think on our feet and come up with a plan allowed me to get to know them. It allowed me to put faces to names, see who I'm going to work with, and know my HRA who I can go to for support, which made me feel a lot more excited to live on campus."

When they step into their new roles, the Resident Assistant staff is eager to support the holistic development of mind, heart and spirit, ensuring that every resident feels empowered to thrive within the Seton Hall community. Their dedication extends beyond mere assistance; it embodies a commitment to cultivating a nurturing environment where individuals can flourish intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually and call our campus their Home at the Hall.

Categories: Campus Life

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