The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 84

Virginia Albaneso Koch

effort to professionalize RA training programs,
several higher education professionals produced two books specifically for RA academic
courses: The Resident Assistant (Blimling &
Miltenberger, 1981) and Learning to Be a Resident Assistant (Upcraft, Pilato, & Peterman,
1982). These resources set the standard for
RA training for the next decade and beyond.
Bowman and Bowman's (1998) research was
the first to describe U.S. practices in the use of
academic courses to train RAs.

Use of academic courses. The use of
academic courses to train RAs seems to have
declined since 1995. Bowman and Bowman
(1995) reported that 33.6% of their respondents (n = 124) used an academic course to
train RAs whereas in the present study only
15% (n = 52) indicated their use. There were
commonalities between RA courses taught in
the early 1990s and those used nearly 20 years
later. For example, in both studies, about 75%
of academic courses were offered at public institutions, and 90% of academic courses were
considered mandatory for RAs.
Sponsoring unit. Today, RA academic
courses are most often housed in a department,
school, or college of education or liberal arts
and science. In a content analysis of 62 course
syllabi, Bowman and Bowman (1995) found
that RA courses "were offered by a variety of
academic and nonacademic departments" (p.
44). While "the variability in departmental abbreviations precluded a precise numerical accounting" (p. 44) of departments offering RA
courses, Bowman and Bowman reported that
the most common sponsor of academic RA
courses was the campus residence life department or the campus's education department.
Likewise, nearly half of the 52 participants in
84

the present study who had indicated that an
academic course was used in their RA training
(44%, n = 23) indicated that their RA course was
most frequently offered by their institution's department, school, or college of education.

Textbooks. A shared reading experience
is still a component of many RA courses.
Drawing on the same content analysis just described, Bowman and Bowman (1995) found
that "half of the syllabi listed The Resident Assistant by Blimling and Miltenberger (1990)
[as the primary course textbook with] no clear
second choice, as no other book received
mention by more than two respondents" (p.
44). Of the 52 participants in the present study
who reported an academic course as part of
their training, 26% reported using Blimling's
RA training textbooks as their academic course
text and 26% reported using an instructor-developed course reader. While 22% of the participants in Bowman and Bowman's (1995) study
did not use any textbook, fewer participants in
this study (17%) reported not using one.
Instructors. Academic courses for RAs are
largely taught by HRL staff members. Much
like Bowman and Bowman's (1995) findings
where respondents reported that all levels of
residence life staff were involved in the administration of the RA course, nearly all respondents (96%) in this study indicated that
HRL staff served as course instructors. Similar
to Bowman and Bowman (1995), the author
found that faculty involvement as RA course
instructors remained infrequent (13%).
Content. A comparison of topics covered
in academic courses revealed both similarities
and differences (Table 1). Similar to Bowman
and Bowman (1995), the author found that five

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

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