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Residential Professionals At day's end, Smith women return to their houses and the routine is then fairly simple: dump your backpack in your room, check in with your friends, head for dinner and look forward to an evening "at home." But for residence coordinators Heather Budd '99 in Haven/Wesley and Joanna Durso '98 in Ziskind the day is not over and they are still very much on the job. Budd and Durso are part of a new residential staffing plan that is in its second year at Smith. At a time when the college is implementing new ways to strengthen both residential and intellectual life on campus, it is an idea whose time has come, say student life administrators. "This new housing staff arrangement makes the position of residence coordinator more of a professional position," explains Associate Dean of Student Affairs Nancy Asai. "Residence coordinators who are no longer students themselves can assume more leadership responsibilities and devote more time to community development and student accountability in the houses." Each evening, Budd and Durso sit down in their respective dining rooms to eat dinner with their housemates. In the evening hours that follow, in case any student needs advice or just a sympathetic ear, they keep their suite doors open. Part of their job as residence coordinators is to be regularly available to students, individually and as house leaders, and to serve as a resource for information, conflict mediation, crisis management and referral. In addition to being responsible for the Smith houses in which they live, they also work with various administrative offices on campus and act as liaisons between their house members and the rest of the campus. Fifteen residence coordinators, or RCs, are now in place throughout the Smith house system. They joined the residence-life team, which still includes the seniors who are head residents (HRs), in the fall of 1998. Like head residents, RCs undergo a rigorous selection and training process and are responsible for the management and general welfare of a Smith house. But unlike HRs, RCs are paid members of the college's administrative residence-life team and are expected to work with the student affairs office on additional administrative assignments. "Because we are not dealing with the stress of academics, we have more time to interact with house members than an HR would," says Heather Budd. She sees her role as one way to help students as they navigate their way through college life. "We deal with roommate problems, homesickness problems. We listen, we counsel, we motivate students." Joanna Durso is in her second year as an RC at Smith. She was Lawrence's house president during her senior year and enjoyed the role enough to apply for an RC position after graduation. An English major, she is considering making a career out of student affairs administration. "What I really like about the role is listening to students," she says. Because Smith considers the residential life of a college student as important as the intellectual life that takes place in a classroom, the college continues to develop and implement other ideas to enhance on-campus life. Among those in the works are projects that are huge-building Smith's first campus center, with groundbreaking scheduled for late 2000, for example-as well as those that are small but still significant, such as providing the support necessary to put a piano in every residential house. Some ideas have already been put to work. These have included beefing up social programming in the houses and creating a new student hangout called Jittery's. A coffeehouse located in the Davis Center, it stays open late for night-owl studiers and socializers and offers everything from lattes and espressos to Tazo teas. |
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