Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 3 - 75

The Potential of Restorative Practices
More recently, restorative practices have been used as a proactive framework within
residential life programs (Whitworth, 2016). Early research on integrating restorative
practices into college and university residential environments suggests that they
may contribute to creating stronger communities and can serve as a powerful tool for
learning about civic commitment (Allena & Karp, 2004; Hiraldo, 2019). In residential
life, the use of restorative practices can consist of proactive community building
in a myriad of ways: managing residential student conduct and conflict, responding
to local and global issues, providing opportunities for staff supervision and leadership
training, and formulating residential curricula or community-building models
(Allena & Karp, 2004; Howard, 2022; Whitworth, 2016). This approach provides staff
and other members of a residential community a platform to discuss various timely and
relevant topics. For instance, a welcome circle for first-year students or a new cohort of
professional staff can focus on sharing both their excitement and concerns about new
experiences. These structured circle conversations play a pivotal role in building trust,
thereby fostering a heightened sense of safety. This, in turn, paves the way for more
candid discussions and greater opportunities for forging stronger connections. Restorative
practices can also serve as a responsive tool, empowering community members
to contribute to troubleshooting or problem-solving issues such as filling gaps in an
on-call duty rotation or helping to address concerning behavior or incidents impacting
communities or teams such as vandalism on a floor or conflicts among staff.
RESTORATIVE PRACTICES AND LIBERATION
At its core, a restorative philosophy can counter neoliberal, colonial, and White supremacist
ideas of community by envisioning a more relational, co-constructed, and
just community. If implemented in a liberatory way, the tenets of restorative justice call
for the identification and acknowledgment of harms, as well as the determination of
what can be done to repair the harms inflicted on people of color, Indigenous people,
and other oppressed identities (Davis, 2019; Valandra, Wapȟáha Hokšíla, 2020). A liberatory
version of restorative practices seeks to challenge power dynamics, center the
voices of marginalized communities, promote community building and collective action,
value and promote inclusivity and cultural diversity, prioritize healing, empower
marginalized communities, and embrace flexibility and adaptivity.
METHODOLOGY AND PROCESS
The conversation that follows reflects the structure of a restorative circle. This format
provides an opportunity to reflect on the applicability of these kinds of discussions
to creating spaces for liberatory dialogue. In this study, four professionals (referred
to as co-authors) who have used restorative practices at different positional levels in
residence life participated in a 90-minute virtual circle via Zoom. They were asked
questions exploring how restorative practices have shaped their perception of residential
communities, community building, and organizational culture in residence life
72 The Journal of College and University Student Housing
Journal of College & University Student Housing Volume 50, No. 3

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