Residential Leader duties: An interview with Autumn Metcalf

by Talik Hill, Media Editor

Could you briefly summarize the process of becoming a Residential Leader?

“It first starts as a traditional job. We put in an application, and if we’re selected for an interview, we go through the interview process. After that, you’re not offered a position just yet. You go through a leadership class, where you learn some leadership skills. Then, you’ll be placed, based on your preference, with either older students or incoming freshmen. It could also depend on if the coordinator feels that you’ll work best in a specific building.”

What are the job duties that a Residential Leader has?

“The main duties that we have are doing building rounds, where we check that everything is up to code, seeing if the fire extinguishers are all up to date, and that the emergency doors are working and clear. We also do outdoor rounds to make sure the outside of the building is up to par. That’s it, besides answering calls, and those can be about anything, from a lockout to quarantines. For the Residential Leader on-duty position, the way it operates depends on the building you’re working with. I know for Mags, we work with both buildings, so we rotate every other week among different Residential Leaders.”

What are some ways Residential Leaders attempt to approach their resident’s questions or concerns in a compassionate way?

“We are trained, in a way, to address things of that nature, but I feel you can never be fully prepared for some of the situations that we’ve dealt with. It’s kind of like a guessing game. You never know what you’re going to walk into, so you never know what you’re going to do or say until you’re in that situation. We do a training called ‘Behind Closed Doors’ where we go through different scenarios like suicide identification, noise complaints, and stuff like that. Then we just go into the situation and figure out how we can solve the issue without escalating it.”

How do Residential Leaders handle disputes between roommates and/or dormmates?“

It starts with a roommate reaching out to us and, depending on what the roommate is comfortable with, we try to sit down and have a meditation between the two to see if we can try and solve it on our level. We try to solve it for ourselves before we take it up to our coordinators.”

What’s the Canes Leading Canes or Residential Leader retreat, and what was your experience like?

“On the Residential Leader retreat last semester, I remember that we went to go bowling, and we also went to Columbus. It was just a time for us to unwind, relax and destress. For the Canes Leading Canes retreat, that’s when all the student leaders on campus get together, and we spent the night at ‘Camp John Hope.’ We were mixed and matched with other student leaders on campus, so it was an opportunity to learn about other options on campus.”

Watch the full interview with Autumn at https://youtu.be/JnBqfGT9dUE