SEAHO Report - Fall 2019 - 27

SEAHO Feature Articles
One of the RAs that we supervised, Deborah, was an RA for an LLC as well as a student employee of the LLC's
campus partner, Cathy3. Early in the year, Deborah expressed confusion of what was within her role as an RA
versus what was within her role as a student employee of Cathy's office. Given that Deborah was the RA for the
LLC and a student employee, it was understandable that this confusion arose.
During a one-on-one conversation between Erin and Deborah, Deborah shared what Cathy was asking her to
do for the LLC. Through the conversations, it became clear to Erin that Deborah's roles as both an LLC RA
and Cathy's student employee were intertwined, and that Deborah needed some sort of assistance clarifying
her roles. As Deborah was beginning to worry about her expectations, Erin became concerned about Deborah's
workload and the potential for her to take on too much. Erin spoke with Stephen, who also had growing
concerns, as his office was directly across from Cathy's office, allowing him to interact with Deborah, much like
Solomon and Erin interacted.
As a result, Stephen and Erin discussed how we might support Deborah in navigating her roles, and we
concluded that we needed to utilize our partnership with Cathy. This manifested in a series of conversations
between the three of us to discuss how Deborah was navigating both roles and the expectations Cathy had for
Deborah in these roles. We consistently advocated to develop concrete expectations with Cathy that allowed
Deborah to understand her roles and maintain some semblance of balance in her work. While we utilized our
partnership with Cathy throughout the year, this became an ongoing process, as both Deborah and Cathy would
fluctuate between adhering to and neglecting the parameters that were set in those conversations.
Campus Partnerships in a Co-Supervision Model
This approach with Deborah and Cathy worked because early in the year, Stephen and Erin determined that
in order to effectively manage the community, the RA staff, and the four LLCs, we had to be in the know
on all things related to each other's campus partners and staff. Because Stephen's office was located across
from Cathy's and he was aware of what was going on with Deborah, Stephen could address smaller instances
of confusion, allowing Erin to focus on teaching Deborah how to dual report effectively. As a result of this
situation, we worked with all LLC partners to create consistent expectations for the RAs working with LLCs
in future years. These conversations yielded a consistent experience for the RAs while also ensuring strong
partnerships continued between Housing and Residence Life and the LLC partners.
Boundary Setting Between Co-Supervisors
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the year, we learned the hard way about navigating boundaries between cosupervisors. Both of us had Labor Day weekend plans that called us away from campus. Erin planned to return
to campus early in the day on Monday (Labor Day), while Stephen planned to return later in the evening. On
the way back to campus, Erin received a call from an Assistant Director of Residence Life, Valerie4, stating
that a student in an LLC had threatened two of our RAs and that there was a significant community impact. The
LLC's campus partner was one Stephen directly worked with, and the RAs directly impacted were also under
Stephen's direct supervision. Upon Erin's return, she followed up with the two RAs who felt threatened to
provide support. In addition, Erin met with Valerie to develop a plan of action.
That evening, Valerie, the Associate Director for Residence Life, the LLC staff, the building RA staff, and Erin
met the residents of the LLC in a community space to reiterate community standards as well as share campus
resources should residents want help processing the incident. Throughout the day, Erin provided updates to
Stephen as needed to ensure he was in the loop. While Erin could have shared more details to help Stephen
upon his return, she also worked to maintain a boundary for Stephen so he could enjoy the remainder of his
vacation.
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SEAHO Report Fall 2019

SEAHO Report - Fall 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SEAHO Report - Fall 2019