ACUHO-I News Blog

Purdue University’s student newspaper, The Exponent, did a three-part series on roommate relationships. The stories profile three successful roommate pairings. The stories are: “Roommates become closer through crisis, culture,” “Roommates bond over paper airplanes, pranks,” and “Twin sisters grow closer as roommates.”

If you’re in a more academic mood, below is a sampling of research on the effects roommates have on each other.

What were your college or university roommates like? Do you have any good stories from your campus?

Roommate Effects on Grades: Evidence from First-Year Housing Assignments. McEwan, Patrick J.; Soderberg, Kristen A. Research in Higher Education v. 47 no3 (May 2006) p. 347-70

Judging Roommates by Their Facebook Cover. Farrell, Elizabeth F. The Chronicle of Higher Education v. 53 no2 (September 1 2006) p. A63-A64

College Living: Issues Related to Housecleaning Attitudes. Ogletree, Shirley M.; Turner, G. Marc.; Vieira, Ana. College Student Journal v. 39 no4 (December 2005) p. 729-33

If you feel like your residence hall is filled with a bunch of animals, just try living in Nemec Hall at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. As reported elsewhere, beginning in August 2010, a section of Nemec Hall will welcome not only 36 students, but each of their favorite pets from home, including fish, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, rats, mice, cats and dogs during the inaugural year of the program.

Stenton University President Wendy B. Libby introduced a similar program during her presidency at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. It was a great success and seemed to help new students adjust to the college environment.

Students can bring one pet each as long as the animal is under 30 pounds and the student pays a registration fee and security deposit. A Pet Council oversees the program, from handling problems to providing input for the dog park that is being constructed outside.

Learn more about Nemec Hall here. Pictured below are Angelina Suarez and Bailey.

Amanda Wallace, of  the University of Alabama, and Anne Stark, from Purdue University, are researching the challenges of advising student groups and the ways a professional advisor can help make the relationship work. If you’ve had experience in this area, please help your colleagues by completing their short, 16-item survey.

Please pass this on to anyone who can assist. There’s always a need for more research in student housing, and this is an easy way to help!

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times about how colleges and universities attempt to communicate to GLBT students that their campuses are open and safe places. Obviously, this is a delicate process, and some are skeptical of what they see as attempts to recruit gay students, without any regard for their other attributes.

How does your institution handle this issue? Do you have special recruiting materials or methods for other specialized communities of students?

Happy Thursday, folks!

I’ve been getting a flurry of questions about RA hiring, evaluation and supervision lately. It’s RA-recruitment season, after all. Unfortunately, there’s no single resource that covers this topic thoroughly. (Hint, hint, if you’re in the mood to research and write a book or paper.) If you’re not up for that, post your tips and resources here!

One member asked about RA qualifications.  I looked at what others are doing. I searched for institutions who specified RA qualifications on their websites beyond the usual good-GPA-and-good-disciplinary-record stipulation.

Here are a few of them:

Brigham Young
Carnegie Mellon
Kent State University
Carleton College
University of Oregon
University of Montevallo
University of Central Florida
Towson University

I also found some scholarly articles on the topic. Here’s a a sample list of citations:

• Wu, M.B. & Stemler, S.E. (2008) Resident Advisor General Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Personality Dimensions, and Internal Belief Characteristics as Predictors of Rated Performance; NASPA Journal (Online). 45 (4); 528-59.

• Servaty-Seib, H. L. & Taub, D. J. (2008) Training Faculty Members and Resident Assistants to Respond to Bereaved Students; New Directions for Student Services 121; 51-62.

• Healea, C.D. (2005) Character Education with Resident Assistants: A model for developing character on college campuses. Journal of Education, 186(1); 65-77.

• Elleven, R. K.; Allen, J. & Wircenski, M. (2001) Resident Assistant Training: A southwestern perspective. College Student Journal, 35 (4); 609-15.

This Inside HigherEd article is titled “The Anti-Amethyst Initiative,” The title is referencing the group of college presidents who support considering lowering the drinking age to 18 to lessen the secretiveness and subterfuge that often accompanies underage drinking on college campuses. They say this would also allow institutions–and parents–more ability to supervise appropriate enjoyment of alcohol.

However, I’m not sure if  Charles Sorensen, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Stout, is advocating for keeping the drinking age at 21 or not. The drinking age doesn’t seem to be his issue; frustration is. Saddened by student deaths resulting from excessive drinking, Sorensen has vowed to redouble the institution’s efforts against underage and inappropriate drinking.

As a result, the students at UW-Stout have heeded Sorensen’s warning and cut down on their drinking considerably. Sales of apple juice have jumped.

…

You’re not buying that, are you?

Actually, students have predictably rallied around alcohol consumption of every sort, especially the illicit kinds, as a result of Sorensen’s declaration. Facebook groups have popped up.  Students have held drink-ins. Sorensen says they’ll come around to a more “sober” frame of mind after the indignation wears off. Some students who oppose his declaration don’t think drink-ins are the solution, but say the problem has to do with the drinking culture, and the supposed complete abstinence from alcohol that ends abruptly at 21. I’m inclined to side with this camp.

What do you think?

Are young adults happily spending their parents’ money again? This article* says they are. This one** says they’re not. Both use the phrase  “The  Bank of Mom and Dad.”

What have you seen on your campus? Is discretionary spending beginning to tick up again?

To make it interesting, let’s handicap things:

* This article links to a page that, as of this posting, has a link to a story: “Girls With Tattoos: It’s not just a guy thing,” as if this is something new.

** This article links to a page with a link to a story: “How Barbie Got Her Geek On,” which Barbie is rumored to do every few years, and it never really happens.

I’ve gotten several questions about co-ed residence halls and related issues lately. I thought the co-ed issue was a closed case; most institutions have co-ed halls, some don’t (usually because of the institution’s religious underpinnings), and that was that. I was apparently mistaken.

Some institutions are considering going co-ed for the first time. Others are looking for information on existing co-ed halls for administrators or parents. Some are thinking of moving from one form of co-ed (by floor) to another (by wing). Visitation issues have also been the topic of some questions lately. I did a search and found that at West Virginia University, students have been protesting against a rule that bans overnight stays by the opposite sex.

Is this flurry of questions a fluke, or are co-ed arrangements and visitation up for debate? What have you noticed in your professional lives?

Unfortunately for ACUHO-I’s members, researchers seem to think as I did — that the co-ed question is over and done with. There isn’t much recent information on the efficacy of co-ed housing vs. single-sex; wings vs. floors; or strict visitation rules vs. liberal. This may also be because most students live in co-ed housing, so it’s hard to find a control group of students who are otherwise similar, but live in single-sex arrangements. I’ve posted a few sample citations here, along with the authors’ summaries. If you know of good studies I’ve missed, let me know: emily [at] acuho-i.org. Thanks! (more…)

As I write this, it occurs to me that this is old news on college campuses. Whenever I have occasion to drive through the Ohio State University campus, my foot hovers over the brake, anticipating a student, intent on his or her phone, slipping nonchalantly off the sidewalk and into the path of my car. This happens regularly, so I’m not being paranoid. It’s the primary reason I avoid driving through campus. But OSU is hardly exceptional in this way.

The consequences of texting while walking can be funny–at least for outsiders–or serious. There’s even an app that lets you, in LifeHacker’s parlance, “multitask without getting hit by a car.”

What’s the situation on your campus? Have your efforts to educate students on, say, looking before they cross the street, been successful?

Online dating sites used to be the purview of middle-aged adults. College-age people relied on the usual young-adult social scene — bars, clubs, parties — to meet.

This is no longer so; Web sites specifically for certain institutions or college students now allow for anonymous flirting, semi-anonymous come-ons, or rambling musings on attraction and rejection. Dating sites allow students to meet others with the same stated aims as theirs — hooking up, relationships, or otherwise. Flirting site allow them to put out feelers to see if the object of a crush might respond in kind. No longer is asking someone out — and risking rejection — the only way to make a flirtatious relationship into something more. Traditional dates faded in popularity years ago, but even then, any relationship required some sort of in-person overture. Now it’s possible to delay or avoid the pain of outright rejection.

Is this a natural progression for digital natives, or are they incapable of forming relationships in-person and making themselves vulnerable in order to do it? Is the situation somewhere between those two extremes? Does it even matter?

If you’re in the eastern United States, you’ve probably seen the bumper stickers: “Ithica Ithaca is Gorges!” The phrase advertises the landscape surrounding Ithica, Ithaca, New York, which is roughly in the middle of the state, near the fingertip of Cayuga Lake.

The touristy boast takes on a darker meaning, however, when one considers that Cornell University students have jumped to their deaths from the bridges spanning the gorges. Six suicides have occurred in this academic year. The three most recent all occurred in 2010, and all involved the bridges. Some other years have also had what seemed to be a high suicide rate, while during others, there were none. Cornell is a very large institution (their total enrollment is 21,325), so the occurrences of things that are both positive and negative will be higher than that for smaller institutions.  However, this is no comfort to the students, staff and administration, and Cornell has been taking steps to prevent tragedies. Cornell adjusted its interpretation of FERPA to allow them to notify a student’s parents of signs of depression without the consent of the student. Faculty and staff members have been trained to spot the signs of depression. A team meets weekly to discuss students who may be suffering emotionally. The institution has beefed up its mental health and counseling services. Cornell has posted police officers on the bridges around campus.

Part of the problem might be something Cornell can’t do anything about: the gorges. The usual perception of a  suicidal person is that if the gorge weren’t accessible, he  would determinedly find another way to end his life.  That might not be the case. A study published in the British Journal of Criminology looked at suicide rates in Britain before and after the design of gas stoves was changed in the 1960s and 1970s.  Pre-1960s stoves delivered the gas in a way that made it easy for people to end their lives. Death by gas inhalation was far more common than any other suicide method during that time; nearly everyone, of course, has a stove. After stoves were made in a way that makes it more difficult to asphyxiate oneself with the gas, suicides decreased dramatically. Apparently the people who would’ve otherwise killed themselves with gas from the kitchen stove did not find another–less convenient–way to end their lives. Scott Anderson wrote about this study, and similar research, in an excellent New York Times Magazine article. Suicide, it seems, is often an impulsive act. If the impulse can be thwarted, the suicide is less likely to occur at all.

Watch these videos. Then we’ll talk. (I’ll wait.)

Okay, were those effective drinking deterrents for you? What about for your students?

I have to admit, when I saw the female version, I thought: “Wowee. That was one helluva night out.” Some YouTube commenters apparently agree; one says: “she is cute in a debauched way…. i think this will probably doesn’t work as the advert intends….” and another noted: “If she came home like that she must have had a f****** EPIC night out!!” Others asked why the advertisement was “promoting” binge drinking. (Facetiously, I assume.) Some seem to get the point of the advertisement; many more are debating the origins of the song in it.

It’s alarming when I find my thoughts aligning with YouTube comments, but I’ll worry about my issues later. Society’s issue, it seems, is that ads like these seem to encourage binge drinking, not deter it, as if a morning spent guzzling water, munching aspirin and locating one’s brain cells is a weird, sticky, stinky badge of honor.

A study conducted at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management  found that PSAs like this don’t discourage binge drinking, and may actually lead to more of it. Ad Age reports on the study, and more results will be published in the Journal of Marketing Research later this year. The ads rely on guilt and shame to move viewers, but if the target audience is already feeling guilt (about anything), they’re likely to shy away from things that play on those emotions, and resist the messages in the ads.

In a touching and thoughtful essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Elizabeth Stone recounts what happened when a student of hers, Casey Feldman, died unexpectedly during summer break. Feldman’s roommate thoughtfully called Stone and others close to her in an effort to prevent them from hearing the news on Facebook first. Then Stone watched as Feldman’s friends grieved on Facebook, posting messages on her wall and consoling each other. As time went on, some friends would check in on Feldman’s page, telling her their news or recalling good times they shared.

The grieving process lasts long after the funeral, and Facebook was a way for Feldman’s friends to recognize that, and share their sadness together.

Facebook being used as a place to mourn and remember a life is hardly unheard of, but it’s still relatively new. What are your campus’ experiences with Facebook and grief?

The student affairs and higher education Twitter community was buzzing on Wednesday with people sharing the link to the Pew Research Center’s “How Millennial Are You?” quiz.  The fourteen question quiz provides a generational result ranging from Millennial [1981+] to Silent [1928-1945]. While results of the quiz were being Tweeted throughout the day, conspicuously absent from the conversation was dialog about what the quiz was actually trying to accomplish.

It is obvious from the questions on the quiz that this is a glorified Internet meme. The results, truly, are meaningless. Many of the traits being assigned to Millennial or Generation X are as much a function of personality as they are generational. Or, more flawed, they are things out of the control of the participant [e.g. the quiz asks about parents’ marital status].

While the site doesn’t portend to be an accurate evaluation, the ensuing conversation was fascinating about how student affairs professional perceive Millennial students. In fact, some seemed insulted to be considered a Millennial, flaunting their Generation X result.

Has it become a status symbol to be identified as a member of one generation rather than another? When did Millennial become a four-letter word, even for those who work in student affairs and higher ed? And, more importantly, have we lost sight that generational identities are indicators of trends in thought patterns, behaviors, and motivation?

Check out the quiz yourself and share your thoughts below.

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart is The Awesome. You all know that. Now he can be The Basis of Your Money Management Instruction for Students!

This Daily Show clip, brought to us via Gawker TV (their motto is “Your work can wait,” so be forewarned) can also be a way you can educate your students on how credit cards work, and how credit card issuers likely do not have their best interests at heart. And it will make them (and you) laugh as well. That’s always a good way to learn things.

What are your techniques for teaching students about unpleasant, “boring,” or otherwise un-enticing topics? Let us, and your colleagues, know!