In those dorms where students usually keep their doors shut and never meet their neighbors, program assistants are now set up to encourage people to leave their rooms and participate in community events.
“PAs exist in certain building complexes to plan large events, collaborate with resident assistants and floor governments, and help residents to meet one another, all in order to build communities in the types of buildings where students usually have difficulty meeting and maintaining relationships with their dorm mates,” said Susan Swarts, assistant director of the office of residential life. “There are two program assistants in Hitch and nine in Sunset Village: three in each of Delta Terrace, Canyon Point, and Courtside.”
“They do a lot of functions, but their primary role is to help build community within a residence complex,” Swarts said. “PAs differ from RAs in that they plan for larger communities such as buildings or complexes rather than for a single floor.
“The two Hitch PAs collaborate to plan events for the entire complex, and each group of three Sunset Village PAs plans for its own building.
“RAs are still responsible for some of the program, especially events focusing on their own floors or sections, and may collaborate with PAs.
“There’s a lot of programming that resident life does as a group,” she said.
Despite PAs’ involvement with their own communities, some students are not familiar with their events. “I don’t know what they are,” first-year political science student Milagros Villalobos said.
Students who have had experience with PAs have noticed the extra programming, although the actual duties of the PAs may remain unclear.
“They’re something like the RA, kind of,” said Liyna Anwar, a first-year undeclared student.
Others have had experience with PA-planned events, but hope to see better, more involved programs.
“I know that there are people that organize events … (at) a lot of (the events) they don’t do a very good job,” said second-year Ryan Holliday. “I just feel they should make more incentive for students to do it. … I just feel they should get people into doing stuff.”
Swarts said that the Office of Residential Life is interested in feedback from residents in order to provide better service in on-campus housing. “We think that PAs are crucial to that,” she said.
ORL holds a voluntary survey about RA and PA service each winter for residents. “We generally get really good feedback about all of our staff,” Swarts said.
In addition Swarts said that students may not know who the PAs are if they live in a building without a PA, and where they would likely not have attended a PA-planned event.
Swarts said that ORL chose not to place PAs in high-rise housing because covering the large community in a high-rise would pose more difficulty and because these buildings already have sufficient resident assistants to provide for programming needs.
“Rather than focusing on high-rises, ORL is trying to help build communities in Hitch and Sunset, where students tend not to form strong bonds with their neighbors.”
“High-rise residents share facilities and already tend to form communities on their own, but the layout of the Sunset and Hitch buildings prevents people from getting to know one another,” Swarts said.
ORL will hold a recruitment fair on Oct. 29, where they will provide information to those interested in becoming PAs next year.