Lesson Learned

For about a month and a half now I have been trying to plan an event for my residential community called "Tatted". The purpose of this program is to teach residents all they should know before getting at tattoo. There is an increasing number of students getting tattoos and I wanted to make sure the ASU students were well informed about the procedure and long term effects of getting a tattoo.

The idea for the program came from a Resident Assistant website. I wanted to bring in a certified tattoo artist for a Q&A session with residents and then follow the Q&A by offering the services of an airbrush tattoo artist so that the students could try on a tattoo with out having to commit to a permanent one.

Unfortunately, I was not able to organize this program before the end of this semester. I made every effort I could to get both a tattoo artist and air brush artist on the same day, but there were too many obstacles to overcome that I could not complete everything I needed in the time frame I gave myself.

Although the event did not happen this semester, there are many things I learned from the experience. Here are some things I learned that you should think about while creating programs in order to avoid what I went through:

• Use an air brush artist that is already on your University's "approved vendor list"
• If you have to use someone not on the "approved vendor list", make sure that you give yourself one to two months to get all necessary paperwork signed.  (At my school, it takes two weeks for a contract to be signed)
• Don't announce your scheduled date until you have secured all event performers
• If you are asking someone from the community to speak at your event, ask them in person to come to your event and then keep checking in until the program
• Ask your Community Director if your University will need an insurance certificate from the vendor and if there are "umbrella terms" that should be included on the certificate
• Ask the vendor if it will be possible to add the necessary umbrella terms to their certificate and if there will be an extra charge for adding the terms
• Ask for help from other CA's on your staff. Big projects like the one I tried to do needs at least two people working on it to be successful

 Now that I know all of these things, I can better prepare for all the things I will have to do to make this program happen next semester. Trying to plan this event was stressful, but it was a great learning experience and I always enjoy having new learning experiences that help me grow and become more professional.






If you are interested, here is the flyer I created for the event:

Just Checking In!

Toward the middle of the semester I was starting to notice that quite a few of my residents were having roommate, homework, and personal issues. Part of my job is to address these issues that my residents are having and help them to solve the issue, whatever it may be. However, I was having trouble addressing their issues because I wasn't being told about the issues until they had already progressed to a point where they were hard to fix.

In order to combat this problem, I thought it would be a good idea to check in with each of my residents. As much as I wanted to be able to do one-on-one conferences with my residents, I didn't have the time because I have so many residents. Instead, I decided to send out a survey for my residents to fill out. In the directions I asked my residents to be completely honest about their feelings so I could help them if they needed it.

Making the survey was extremely easy and I was able to get the information I needed in an organized, timely manner. Google has an option to make a "live form" through their Google Doc system. This form can be designed in any way you want. This format helps the residents fill out a simple survey while giving the information to the CA in an organized manner (excel spreadsheet). Here is a picture of the form I made for my residents so you can have an idea:

 

These are the questions I asked on the survey:

• Name
• How many credit hours are you taking this semester?
• Are there any classes you are struggling with? If so, what classes?
• Are you familiar with the tutoring services on campus?
•  Do you know how to find the tutoring services/where they are on campus?
• How is your room/ living arrangement?
• Are there any roommates/suitemates you are clashing with? If yes, who is the roommate/suitemate and what are some of the problems you are having?
•  What clubs/activities are you involved in on campus? 
•  Have you had trouble making friends here?
•  What could Kevin (co) and I do to make your experience here better?
•  Other questions, comments, concerns? 

Overall, I think that my residents were pretty honest in their answers to these questions and it helped me to guage a littler better what I needed to do to help them.

Although I didn't get the personal interaction that comes with a one-on-one, I thought the survey was a great approach to finding out how my residents were adapting to college life.

There were some other benefits that came out of making students complete this survey. Many students provided suggestions for new events or activities in the suggestions box. One great suggestion that I got was posting a poster in the hall that allowed students to see who else on the floor had their same class/professor. I thought it was a great suggestion and so I created a poster and put it up in my hall. This is what it looks like:

 So far I've had a few residents use it, but it hasn't caught on yet. My thought now is that I will make a new one for second semester and ask all my residents to use it so that they can study with their floor mates.

My overarching theme of this post is simply this: There are many benefits that come out of taking the time to see how your residents are doing. Not only will you get closer to them and more involved in their lives, but you will also get great suggestions on how to do your job better/ service your floor better.

Gangnam Style Door Decs

At ASU, new "door decs", as they are called, are supposed to be put up twice a semester - once at the beginning and once in the middle. This time of year came fairly recently. So, I am sharing the idea my co and I came up with with you!

At the beginning of the school year, my co-worker and I decided that we wanted our floor to be Mario themed. When it came time to change the door decs, we were sick of Mario. Something totally different is what we were shooting for.

At the time that we were doing door decs, "Gangnam Style" was a pretty big deal. If you haven't seen the video, you are missing out! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0) "Gangnam Style" was loved by so many that we had no other option but to use it as our theme for the new door decs.

Here is what they ended up looking like:

Overall, these door decs were fairly simple to make. I printed multiple copies of the Gangnam man and name box and then cut them out individually. Then, I backed each one with colored construction paper to make the door decs a little more visually pleasing. These door decs were extremely time consuming, but my residents got a good kick out of the new theme, so it was worth it to me.

*Note: The idea for Gangnam Style door decs was solely that of my co-worker. I simply created the decs.

November Bulletin Board

All of my bulletin boards up to this point had been about fairly serious topics. Although these were important topics that I felt my residents needed to know about, I thought it was time for something a little bit lighter and humorous.

November has become known as "No Shave November". This is the time of year when mostly males, let it (facial hair) all grow out. Recently, some women have decided to partake in the November festivities and decide to not shave for the month.

"No Shave November" was the theme of my bulletin board for this month. I was curious as to how this tradition got started, so I researched it more. Apparently, the event originally started as a prostate cancer awareness event. The event is called "Movember" and focuses on raising money and awareness. The website contains more information about the organization and event: http://www.movember.com/.

I think my bulletin board this month came out to be fun and informative. These are two things that I think are important characteristics in a bulletin board that will catch a resident's eye. Here is a picture of the board so that you can see how it turned out:

On the bulletin board I put the history and facts about Movember. Also, I added pictures that revolved around the theme of not shaving. There are many pictures on sites like Pinterest and Tumbler that could be useful for a bulletin board like this. Finally, I left a space for my residents to leave comments about what they think about No Shave November. One resident already wrote: "It's a hairy situation".

This will be my last board of the semester where I will have creative control. My next board will contain facts about moving out of the residence halls for Christmas Break. Therefore, I won't have a new board to show until January. Until then, I'll be brainstorming! :)

Programming: The First Presidential Debate

All community assistants at ASU are required to "program" for their residents. This means creating events that help students learn, grow, and have fun. Many CA's like to share their personal interests with students. For example, a girl on my staff hosted a crotchet program because she loves to crotchet and wanted to teach others.

For my first program I wanted to do something that I am interested in, but also something that students would get a lot out of. My residents are all freshman and therefore, freshly 18 and able to vote. 2012 is an election year so I wanted to be sure that my residents were knowledgeable about the issues and ready to vote in their first election. With all this in mind, I decided to organize a viewing party of the first Presidential debate on October 3rd.

Here is a picture of the set-up for the event:

Putting this event together was easy. There were a total of five steps I had to do:

1. Market the event
2. Reserve a viewing space in my community area
3. Get money for food/go shopping for food
4. Put all TV's in the area to a loud volume on the same channel
5. Pull up an ample amount of chairs to the TV's

The event was, in my opinion, very successful. I had about 50 students come to watch the debate.

In order to better market this event, I offered free food to those who attended. I further added to the "theme" of the event by advertising that I would be serving "Patriotic" snacks. As you can see in the picture below, this turned out to be a large selection of junk food:

 The kids who came to the event loved  it, however, and I was able to get rid of all of the food at the event.

I highly recommend events like this because they are easy to put together and help students stay informed about important issues. Students are much more likely to be in-tune with important issues like the elections when lots of people around them are doing it too.

August, September, and October Bulletin Boards

Every month community assistants are required to put up a new bulletin board. Here are mine from the past couple months:

August
For August, I included information on my bulletin board that my residents would need as new students at ASU. This information included a map of campus, Welcome Week events,  dining hall hours, and upcoming deadlines for withdrawing from classes. I do not have a picture of this bulletin board because it was a plain one.

September
September was the first time that I was allowed to choose what type of bulletin board I would like to do.  As a sophomore, I am aware that when kids come to college, they have sometimes never experienced drinking. Although I do not condone underage drinking, I am also not able to control the actions of my residents. Therefore, I thought it would be beneficial to have a bulletin board that gave students facts about alcohol. The board featured various facts about alcohol, what a "drink" is, and a "beer pong" set up. I got the idea from a post on Pinterest. Here is a picture of the bulletin board I created:

October
2012 is an election year. Because November 4th is election day, I wanted to do a bulletin board pertaining to the elections in October so that my residents could be well educated about the issues and candidates before election day.  For this bulletin board I featured a color picture of each candidate, the dates of upcoming debates, and a table that outlines each candidate's stance on various issues. Additionally, I provided information about how to register to vote in Arizona and what to do if you are a student from out of state. Here is the board I created for the elections:

Welcome

Hey there,
My name is Clarissa Sorden and I am currently a Sophomore at Arizona State University. This year, I was hired as a community assistant (most commonly known as an RA) on my campus. I love my job and I love showcasing things I've been able to accomplish in this position thus far. Therefore, I decided to dedicate an entire blog to the subject!

My hope is that this blog will help give ideas for programs, bulletin boards, etc. to aspiring or current RA's or CA's.

Feedback is always welcome and I hope that you enjoy reading this blog!

Sincerely,
Clarissa Sorden