Talking Stick - March/April 2014 - 53

Magura: Ah, I see. That's a big
difference between our institutions
then. We are on quarters, and most of
our students are first-year students,
who live with us all three terms. For us
it doesn't make much sense to bill for
community damage mid-year. Thanks
for the explanation!
Mandy Martin: We bill community
damage monthly. It helps bring the
message home that there is a real
cost associated with the behavior and
gives our in-hall staff the chance to
have conversations and/or identify
culprits to charge individually instead
of to the whole community. We used
to have endless "but Susie didn't live
there when xyz happened," but now
we almost never have that problem.

track the roster component, which
is what takes the most time for me
(currently - that will change soon
because software implementation
is looming!). Mandy, do you have a
minimum amount you have to reach
in damages before students can be
billed? I love the idea of monthly, but
our handbook and contract both say
that we won't bill unless a community
reaches $5.00/student in fees.

Martin: Yes, our minimum is $1.00,
so we get there faster.
Barile: We use the same minimum
of $1.00. We used to send paper bills
with the descriptions to each student
via snailmail, since their student
account will just say "ResHall Charge."

likely that the appeal will be upheld
because it doesn't answer anything in
our rubric.

Barile: What are your appeal
guidelines? Do you ultimately decide,
or is it a group of res life staffers?
Magura: Thank you all for providing
me some more perspectives from
smaller campuses with more upperdivision students. I'm always looking
for new ways to improve our services,
and, as we all know, billing is generally
a point of contention for students
in terms of understanding why they
would be charged for something. We
have an online petition for financial
appeal a student can complete
within 45 days of any charge on their

our appeals coMMiTTee is Made up of represenTaTiVes froM each area wiThin our
deparTMenT, and we are Very inTenTional abouT haVing adequaTe represenTaTion
in These MeeTings To MeeT a quoruM before rendering a decision. This also helps
oThers in our deparTMenT undersTand The work we do in operaTions.

It's also helpful when there is a spike
in damage due to a big campus annual
event that involves more damage than
usual.

Barile: I thought about the monthly
idea. How does it work? Stacy, I saw
you sent a mail merge to each student.
I send a generic message to all email
addresses that have a charge/credit
on their account with directions to
access their charges on our system,
with appeal directions as well, and a
reminder that community damage
appeals are not accepted.
Oliver-Sikorski: I have some things
I want to try with an Access query to

We switched to paperless in 2010 and
encourage them to look for specifics
on their web account. I have been
tinkering with a web form for them to
submit their appeals that has VERY
specific questions, since I often have
to filter through long responses to find
out what they're appealing. Right now,
they're just required to send an email
to our office.

Oliver-Sikorski: Brandon, I would
love to see that appeal form when
it comes to fruition. We give
specific guidelines for appeals, but
instead I get emails mostly sent
out of understandable frustration.
Unfortunately, that often makes it less

university account from housing
and dining. What I appreciate about
the appeals process is that it usually
provides more context to our office of
the story behind the scenes, which we
usually don't know about otherwise.
Our appeals committee is made up
of representatives from each area
within our department, and we are
very intentional about having adequate
representation in these meetings to
meet a quorum before rendering a
decision. This also helps others in our
department understand the work we
do in operations.

Oliver-Sikorski: Currently, I'm
the only one who reviews damage
March + april 2014

53
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