46 CONTINUED CONVERSATIONS Another thing I thought of last night are the challenges we face trying to keep up with things like the Clery Act and other governmental mandates (meningitis inoculations). The new “Dear Colleague” letter will most certainly be a continuing source of training for our student and professional staff members as we proceed with understanding exactly what the letter means for housing and residence life operations. I found out in a meeting two months ago that we probably need to do an active shooter type of drill during the fall semester to be in compliance with Clery. I’m currently designing what such a drill would look like, and our student staff will be major players in this activity; ongoing training will be needed to facilitate this drill and help educate our students. We have been wrestling with our academic initiatives type programs because our student staff do not see them as being helpful in creating community. As seasoned professionals, we scratch our heads and think . . . really? Of course they can help create community; however, many staff see programming as this mountain of paperwork and hoops they have to jump through to keep their jobs. They really struggle. For us at least, we were once solely focused on community development and then went to the other side of the spectrum of being focused on learning communities, Freshman Interest Groups (FIGs), and an educational curriculum. I think we are finally seeing that there needs to be a balanced mix of both the community development and educational curriculum type programming in our model. Both were actually always there together, but we are being much more intentional to show how the two specific types of programming we value most can work hand in hand and operate independently. Trying to train our staff in how to be effective programmers continues to be a challenge for us. Although a basic block of the CA/RA position, it does seem to challenge student staff and professional staff alike these days. This conversation is just getting started. To view the full version, go to http://blog.acuho-i.org/2011/08/ continued-conversations-ra-training. CONVERSATIONS is dedicated to capturing dialogue between professionals on the topics that affect campus housing. If you would like to be part of a future conversation - or have a topic you want to see discussed - let us know at talkingstick@acuho-i.org. SEPTEMBER + OCTOBER 2011 51http://blog.acuho-i.org/2011/08/continued-conversations-ra-training http://blog.acuho-i.org/2011/08/continued-conversations-ra-training http://www.duboiswood.com http://www.duboiswood.com