The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 42

Katherine B. Boone * Denise L. Davidson * Mark Bauman

privileges for men and women, to no curfews,
abandonment of dress codes, more tolerant
attitudes about student drinking, open
visitation, and coed residence halls. (Blimling
& Miltenberger, 1990, p. 32)
Consequently, the role of residential staff
needed to evolve; the housemother role
ended, and professional and paraprofessional
residence hall educators emerged (Upcraft &
Pilato, 1982).
The changing times prompted the National
Association of Women Deans and Counselors
(NAWDAC) to advocate, in 1967, for five roles
for RAs: (1) helping to establish the environment within the hall; (2) assisting groups and
individual students; (3) advising student activities; (4) enforcing rules and regulations; and
(5) assisting with administrative responsibilities (as cited in Arvidson, 2003, p. 31).
Just three years later, Greenleaf (1970) outlined three residence hall staff functions that
align with NAWDAC's roles: providing an
academic environment to challenge students,
acting within a counseling role, and offering
activities for social and cultural interaction.
The RA role moved from being primarily a disciplinarian to being a counselor, adviser, and
disciplinarian; the word "control" was almost
completely eliminated from RA job descriptions (Arvidson, 2003).
The role of RAs was further altered in
1974, when the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act (FERPA) was enacted by the U.S.
Congress to provide protections for the privacy
of student education records (Scheuermann,
2013). In essence, the law stated that, with the
exception of health and safety emergencies, institutions could not disclose educational information to third parties including, importantly
42

for the times, parents. This law changed the
RA role concerning what they were permitted
to say to residents when they counseled and
what they could share with others. "FERPA
limits the disclosure of information from
student 'education records,' a term that the law
defines quite broadly and that is not limited to
'academic' records" (Tribbensee & McDonald,
2009, p. 2). RAs may need to disclose to residents in a counseling session that they may
have to share information with a higher authority for health and safety reasons. Further, if
a person outside the university were to seek information about a resident, the RA would not
be able to share that information (Tribbensee &
McDonald, 2009).

THE RESIDENT ASSISTANT IN
MODERN TIMES
In 1982, Upcraft and Pilato put forth six key
job functions for RAs, who were expected to do
the following:
(1) provide personal help and assistance; (2)
manage and facilitate groups; (3) facilitate
social, recreational and educational
programs; (4) inform students or refer them to
appropriate information sources; (5) explain
and enforce rules and regulations; and (6)
maintain a safe, orderly and relatively quiet
environment. (p. 10)
These responsibilities are generally similar to
those of the 1960s and 1970s as expressed by
Greenleaf (1970), Upcraft and Pilato (1982),
and Arvidson (2003). Yet in the late 1970s, a
noteworthy philosophical shift occurred in
many housing programs (Upcraft & Pilato,
1982). Prompted by criticisms of higher education, institutional leadership began to seek
ways to "increase community, respond to an
ever more diverse student population, and

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3

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