The First Few Weeks by Amber Woyak

SIU Residence Life has some great things going on, and we want to showcase some of our proud moments on our blog. We also hope people considering working in RA, graduate assistant, or full-time positions with our department will take a minute to learn more about the things we are doing. More information about our department, including position descriptions, application information, and graduate and full-time staff profiles can be found on our recruitment website.

Today's blog post was written by Amber Woyak. Amber began working at SIU on July 1, 2013, and is one of two Hall Directors in Schneider Hall. Amber has two years full-time experience working as a Hall Director at Ferris State University in Michigan. She received her Master's degree from SIU Carbondale and her Bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

For the past few weeks, SIU Residence Life Staff have been participating in Hall Director training.  As a new HD at SIU, it has been very exciting to meet the professional staff that I’ll be working with this coming year.  As a team, we have been fortunate to be able to spend the last few weeks together and continue planning for an excellent year.   I wanted to take this time to share a few of the exciting things we have been discussing for the coming year.

One part of training that was most exciting to me was the opportunity to travel to different departments on campus, such as AutomotiveTechnology & Aviation, University Honors Program, Mass Communication and Media Arts, College of Liberal Arts and School of Architecture.  As a team, we were able to meet with some of the Staff and Faculty members in these areas to learn more about their academic programs so we can serve as a better resource to our students.  We were able to tour their buildings and offices so we could see where our students are spending their time when they are not in our buildings.  It was extremely beneficial, as a new staff member to SIU, to participate in these tours and learn more about the academic side of campus.

Another exciting part of our training was taking a day to have a retreat at Touch of Nature.  During this time, we truly jumped into the details of the student organizations that our department advises or works with (RHA, Area Councils, NRHH, BTO, F/UAs, etc.)  Additionally, we were able to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of our programs and develop a tangible plan for the coming year with new initiatives.  I’m excited to see these come to fruition and be an active member of the change happening on campus. 

The last few weeks have been eye-opening to the changes happening on campus and in Residence Life. I’m lucky to be a part of such a great team and I am looking forward to the rest of training, opening and the academic year with the students!