In March of 2017, I was hired by Residential Life at Minnesota State University, Mankato as a Community Advisor (CA) and officially began training in August of 2017. Another term for this role is a Resident Assistant or RA. The role of a Community Advisor is to create a positive floor community and environment that is conducive to personal and academic success of all persons living in the residence halls. To me, being a CA means I try to create a welcoming environment to all students through structured programming, such as academic events and weekly floor dinners and be visible on the floor as a resource for students to seek help from. I greatly enjoyed my position as a CA and it has helped me further critique and expand my leadership model and philosophy.
A big part of being a Community Advisor is working on the Residential Life team. I am one of 68 CA’s hired by the University and work on a team of 7 other individuals in my area under the direction of a Hall Director. During my second year of college I developed my leadership model to be one of fluidity, meaning I like to change the style I use based on the setting. Being on a large team of all CA’s and separating into smaller area groups was a great way to observe leadership styles from professional staff during training and throughout the year. It meant I also got to try out my own model in smaller group sessions. During training when all the CA’s were together, it was easy to take a servant leadership approach as we all wanted to show our new team members and bosses our strengths and skills, not to mention the appreciation we had for being chosen for the job. This meant volunteering our free time to decorate the halls and set-up for new students to feel welcome when they checked in.
As we began to separate into our smaller area groups it was easier to use a democratic style of leadership, modeling after the style I observed from various leaders in RHA and STLF. I often had new ideas of how I thought we could improve conditions in the residence halls, such as having a competition to see who had kept their floor the cleanest for their General Maintenance Worker. In order to make this idea happen, I voiced the idea to my team and asked how we could implement this into our program, relying on past CA’s opinions on what seemed to work on different floors and what didn’t. I then took all of our ideas and made a proposal to send to our Area Director. I also used a democratic leadership approach when addressing issues I had with our team and how we could all work together to steer us back on the right track, such as re-evaluating our team standards in the spring and having everyone share their opinions on how they felt our weekly Wednesday programs went.
Being a CA meant I also took on a new role, one of a coaching relationship with residents on my floor. I was used to being a leader through various roles on campus, but it was a new ball game to be a mentor in the eyes of so many incoming students. My philosophy of leadership revolves around “clear communication and accountability within reason, open to discussion on all ideas, working towards a common goal based on our strengths and weakness’. I would make sure to clearly communicate all expectations with the residents for how our floor should be maintained and made sure it was within reason. I also have my door open to my room, or am in the lounge when I can be to allow students to come to me with problems and discussions on events. And as a CA, I also was the advisor to my floors community council, something I was extremely passionate about. I recommended students to join and tried to help place them in position I figured they would thrive in.
Although I chose to resign from my position as a CA due to my own personal well-being, I will enjoy the relationship I made with my residents and the knowledge I gained through working with such a diverse group of individuals. Although my time in the residence halls has come to a close, they will always be my home at MSU.