RA Selection

Resident Assistants (RAs) serve as leaders and role models in the residence halls. RAs receive extensive training to develop the tools, ideas, and skills necessary to handle any situations that may arise.

RA Responsibilities and Requirements

RA Responsibilities

  • Provide residents with programming and community-building opportunities.
  • Participate in scheduled building/area duty and rounds.
  • Assist and serve as a resource to residents.
  • Attendance at Tuesday night staff meetings and weekly individual meetings.
  • Registration and successful completion of RA Seminar (ITDY140).
  • Compliance with all items outlined in the RA Agreement.

RA Requirements

To be eligible for the RA position, a student must:

  • Be enrolled at Fisher for at least one semester and have earned at least 30 credits at the start of employment.
  • Have a Fisher GPA of 2.5 overall and a Fisher GPA of 2.0 in the most recent semester.
  • Have lived in a residence hall for at least one semester.
  • A fundamental function of an RA is to be present and available to residents. Students who choose to participate in student teaching, internships, or non-regional nursing preceptorships that require living off-campus or time away that is above and beyond one weekend a month may not be employed as an RA during the semester in which they are involved in that experience.
  • Be an active full-time undergraduate student. Due to time conflicts between required academic and RA commitments, and off-campus responsibilities, pharmacy and graduate students are not eligible to be an RA.
  • Due to time conflicts between required outside organizations and RA commitments, students who are members of the orientation team, the SGA executive board, and the RHA executive board are not eligible to be an RA.
  • Be in good student conduct standing.

Note: We reserve the right to review Student Conduct files for all RA candidates. If offered an RA position, compliance with the RA Agreement is expected.

What Does an RA do?

Residential Life Team Member

The entire RA staff is made up of 47 students. This team is divided into groups of RAs that live in one of the residence halls and are supervised by the residence director of that building/area. The RAs meet weekly with their RD and as a staff to discuss issues relating to students, the halls, and event planning. As a member of the Residential Life team, each RA is expected to support and assist the other RAs on staff.

Mentor

As a leader and role model in the residence halls, many residents will come to the RA for advice, information, assistance, and a wide range of concerns. For example, the RA may respond to roommate conflicts, facilities issues, frustrated students, and any number of things. The RA must understand how to handle various situations and be a resource for their residents. RAs receive extensive training before serving in the RA role to provide tools, ideas, and skills to help develop the necessary confidence for the RA to handle situations that may arise. RAs learn the appropriate protocol for serious and emergency situations, as well as day-to-day issues.

Resource

RAs are viewed as a walking information booth. An RA will be sought out by residents to answer questions from "Where's the Campus Center?" to "How do I log onto Fish 'R' Net?" The RA will be made aware of all the resources we have on campus through training. If the RA still does not know the answer to a question, they will have the confidence to say, "I don't know, but let's find out together."

Programmer and Community Builder

Offering programming to meet the varying needs of the residents, as well as building community, are vital elements to linking the on-campus experience to the mission and goals of Fisher. Resident assistants are responsible to abide by and enforce the Code of Conduct and residence hall regulations. Each policy was created to develop a safe and non-threatening residence hall community. RAs are expected to confront and report infractions of these behavioral standards. Extensive training equips RAs to negotiate the confrontation process.

Administrator

RAs also have administrative responsibilities. As part of the ResLife team, RAs are responsible for checking students in and out of rooms, being on-duty in the residence halls on a rotating basis, completing paperwork, reporting room repair requests, and other duties. Another important part of the RA role is to stay in communication with the residence director regarding various issues in the halls.