This blog series features different writers responding to the prompt, “What is the future of the RD position and role?”
Guest Post by Carley Eichhorn, Residence Life Professional
So, you’ve heard of iPad kids, right? You might have seen the term used on social media or have laughed at TikToks featuring these kids. If you don’t know what an iPad kid is, let me fill you in. An iPad kid is a coined term used to describe young children who are constantly in front of screens, need technological stimulation at all times, and in turn, lack effective communication and interpersonal skills. This is the generation that will soon impact America and become the future of the Resident Director role. Because of the constant information and content flow these children receive, the generation of iPad kids will be the most educated college students that there ever was. However, with this great influx in knowledge, comes some backfire. The raising of youth today no longer sees the high value in mastering soft skills. This will change the future of how a Resident Director supervises student staff members and advises incoming college students. In the coming times, academics will no longer be the hardest struggle of a college student, but rather learning how to live in a community with others.
Now I’m not here to judge, stereotype, or make fun of a younger generation. In fact, I think there is a lot we can learn from iPad kids. They know how tech can improve our everyday lives and fully take advantage of the accessible resources at their fingertips. As Resident Directors we need to prepare ourselves by learning about the changing trends in youth so that we can best know how to serve our future residential communities. For us to truly have a positive impact on our incoming student staff members and residents, we need to be able to understand younger demographic trends.
We can start to gain this understanding by truly listening and learning from our student staff members… even if they say or do something we don’t agree with. I once had a Resident Assistant tell me that bulletin boards are archaic ways to spread information, and oof did it hurt. However, I can’t say that they were wrong! The more I thought about it, bulletin boards aren’t as effective as they used to be. They are either not looked at, or are products of hours of hard work, only to be torn down and ripped by residents the following weekend. Let’s reflect on ways Resident Directors can learn from this and implement that knowledge into our future residential curriculums. Should we send virtual newsletters instead? Perhaps we should host more educational programs? I’ll let you in on a little secret, the answer is not in this blog, but rather will come from asking and listening to your student staff members.
As Resident Directors learn to shift their roles with the times, we also need to teach our future staff members the importance of soft skills. This is something they may have not had the opportunity or privilege to learn before coming to college. Some of the most important skills employers seek are interpersonal qualities. It is our duty
to advise our student staff members and help them learn and thrive in their roles. Many of the Resident Assistants I have worked with have told me their apprehensions about door knocking, ice breakers at floor meetings, and face-to face intentional conversations. All of these tasks exercise the use of communication and soft skills, and might I add, are required expectations for their role. We need to teach our staff members at the beginning of the year that if they
go room-to-room during move-in and meet their residents, it won’t be so scary to knock on their door, or chit-chat with them during the rest of the year. With that, we need to emphasize that program attendance recruiting does not start a week before the event. It starts on move-in day when students are looking for comfort, acceptance, and community in their new home. Resident Directors need to stress to their staff members the importance and “why” behind the daunting tasks of face-to-face socialization with their residents.
Speaking of residents, let’s chat about what the future holds for Resident Directors and resident relationships. I think an important realization we need to consider is that our incoming students have dealt with significantly more technological issues than they have with human conflict. They are ingrained in quick fixes that are not confrontational. When someone faces technology issues, they tailor the settings to their preferences, have a professional fix the device, or accept that the device is broken, and needs to be replaced. Here’s the thing, roommates and other students in the hall are not pieces of technology. Students cannot expect Resident Directors and Resident Assistants to handle roommate conflicts by tailoring to one’s preferences. Also, we need to teach students that you can’t just replace a roommate every time there is an ounce of conflict in the room. A Resident Directors future will consist of having the utmost patience and willingness to teach conflict resolution and effective communication skills.
Despite the new adaptations we may face when advising and welcoming iPad kids into the residential communities our future also consists of learning from them. We too, can learn new effective communication skills. For example, when a student is unaware of the hall’s rules and policies, we may sigh and think that they are on posters throughout the halls and were written in several areas for the resident to see. Did we truly do our best to communicate our community expectations to these students? The same students are looking at their phones and not the walls the entire time they are walking through the halls, waiting for the elevator, and leaving for class. We could perhaps tailor our policy communication to better reach our modern target audience. The modern student is also not always looking at their phone to be rude and dismissive of the world around them. They can be studying for a class, accessing news, or learning something new. As Resident Directors we can utilize the student’s passion for always seeking new information to create more conversations in our halls focused on global issues, community improvements, and political climates. Our future will depend on altering our traditional Residence Life and education ways to better connect with the modern student. Â
The future of the Residence Director role is iPad kids. We need to be focusing on how to best understand the youth of today that will be the upcoming population we serve. By Residence Directors taking in new student perspectives and sharing skills with students they might not come to college with, we will create a strong community, and an even stronger future.