A Day in the Life of an HD by Ryan Podolak, Neely Hall Director

School is out and we are a few weeks into summer. I’ve been on a summer vacation trip, as have a handful of the other Hall Directors. We’re now in the full swing of day-to-day summer camps, conferences, New Student Orientation, and summer projects. Most of my day-to-day work is focused on various projects.

"Various projects" is a catchall term. We are looking at ways to provide a more structured experience for the graduate students working in Residence Life – a grad curriculum of sorts. Our guest apartments need to be inventoried, and the linens and other materials we use for Hall Director candidates and other guests must be stored properly so they are ready to go when we need them next year (We move fast, so this is important). Planning and session preparation continues for Resident Assistant, Graduate Assistant, and Hall Director training. Building opening and closing “how-to” guides/packets are being developed. I have been combing through my Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) book and developing a guide for our Hall Council advisors. (Typically Hall Councils are co-advised by a Hall Director and a Graduate Assistant, with the Hall Director playing a supporting role.)

Summer also provides time for those “fun” projects - the ones you’ve been dreaming of but don’t have time for during the normal school year. For me, this is examining our RA candidate evaluation forms and our RA evaluation forms. I hope to determine to what degree there is a correlation between an RA candidate’s “score” and how that RA then fared on their end-of-the-semester evaluation. I am interested in the results and playing with the numbers.

Of course, there are some consistent summer tasks. I still participate in the petitions meeting I attend during the school year (committee that reviews petitions of students who would like to be released from their Housing contracts). I still have duty (though not as much) and do rounds in the buildings with summer RAs. I help with New Student Orientation and various camps/conferences and the check-ins and check-outs associated with those happenings. Facilities is busily reupholstering furniture, checking every smoke detector, replacing mattresses, changing filters, and beautifying the buildings.

 Then there are fun summer surprises, like when your apartment gets new furniture!