Alexa Harrington wrote an interesting and thought-provoking post at her blog called Educated Nation, discussing the RA position and its increased popularity due to the great compensation in today’s poor economy:

It’s amazing what starts to look enticing when the economy is sucking. Nationwide, colleges and universities have reported phenomenal increases in the number of applicants for RA positions. RAs (resident advisors) are the long-suffering, non-freshmen, adult(ish) folks who agree to live in vomit-splattered, high-volume dorms in exchange for free room and board at their institution of higher education.
[…]
During my freshman-year stint in the dorms, it was widely considered among the resident hall population that only an upperclassman with an extreme lack of tuition money would ever consider putting themselves in harm’s way (that would be in the way of a pack of newly-liberated-from-parental-control freshmen) for what is basically a non-paying job that totally wrecks your sleeping and studying schedules.
However, it was also considered by the lot of us that only someone with a higher degree of motivation to become educated than any of us college-fund-having kiddos had would accept such a job. So, while on the one hand we thought of our RAs as an especially cranky variety of fun-hating babysitter, we also had to admit that out of all of us, they were the most willing to do whatever it was going to take to earn a college degree—even put up with our played-out antics (which we thought were phenomenally original, but which the RAs and the janitors always knew exactly how to clean up, thereby calling into question our actual level of inventiveness).

From an insider’s perspective, I find it interesting how outsiders — those college students who never contemplated the RA gig — view the position. I think with everything, there are always going to be a variety of opinions based on the personality of your RA. If your RA was a jerk, you’re probably not going to think they’re particularly valuable in on-campus living communities. On the other hand, if you had a high-energy, motivated RA, you’re probably going to have a generally high opinion of the role. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing Alexa (at Educated Nation) wasn’t one that had a life-changing relationship with her RA.

Alexa’s description of the position is actually more hyperbole than it is fact. Some RAs are initially attracted to the position because of its financial benefits, and perhaps there are more candidates for the positions because of that interest. But as a residence life professional, it’s very easy for us to sort out those who are solely motivated by material benefits from those who want to make a difference.

As the housing officer notes in Alexa’s post, the RA is grossly underpaid in that the position’s extensive compensation will be earned by the middle of the fall semester. It’s not just vomit, either. Mediating roommate conflicts, confronting their peers’ violations of policy, and the famous “other duties as assigned” are staples of the job, and if someone was hired only interested in reaping the financial reward, we know they’d probably walk out immediately.

One thing Alexa noted that I wholeheartedly agree with is the notion of grudging respect for RAs among students living in residence halls. A student might detest an RA for dispersing two of his/her parties in a semester and turning his/her name into the campus’s judicial officer, but I find in my conversations with the student (which follows this referral process), most of these students acknowledge that the RA “was just doing their job,” and we have a conversation about what that job entails. I usually come away from the conversation believing that while that student still might not have come to terms with his/her responsibility in a particular incident, he/she does grudgingly respect the RA for dealing with the “drama” that can accompany the gig.

One more comment regarding the output of the position — it’s not just drama. Many candidates interviewing for the position, if not there for the room and board, naively proclaim they’re there to “help people.” (As someone respected in the higher ed field notes, “You can help people at a 7-11.”) This is a better answer, though, than the material benefits line. Eventually, successful RAs do help people, but each does it a bit differently. They fine-tune their role with the help of residence life professionals, seizing the aspects of the position that amplify strengths, and challenging themselves to grow in areas of weakness. There are strong event-planners, and those strong with administrative tasks. They will understand at some point, though, that if they’re particularly successful, they don’t just help people; they change lives. They’re the figurative (sometimes literal) arbiters of millions of minutes of life stories that intersect on a common hallway or wing. It might be automatic to focus on the negative aspects of that — illness, conflict, etc. But think about the potential there. The RA that recognizes the influence and opportunity they possess in that setting is the one who is the most successful, and the person who gets all that they can out of the position — not just the room and board.