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Sending good thoughts.
Apr. 17th, 2007 10:00 amMy first, gut reaction to the news about Virginia Tech is deep sadness. Having been an RA in the past I am not surprised that one of the first people to be shot and killed was an RA. RAs are the people who are supposed to run toward the problem on campus. They are the first people to arrive at a situation at a residence hall, and the last to leave. They are the peer face of campus management. The student who also represents the university. I am saddened by all of the loss at VT, but knowing that an RA tried to be the first person to help really hits home.
As an RA I did not have an easy time of it. My first semester my first yr I was threatened. One of those "threats of a threat of a gun." Never having seen the gun or being threatened with it personally.. but having to take it seriously all the same. The floor I had was a wild bunch.. mostly freshman. Plenty of them were away from home for the first time and were setting their own rules for the first time. They didn't like having rules imposed upon them.. but living in a group situation always means rules. Like quiet hours. And guest hours. And a dry campus. So I spent a good deal of time that first yr writing people up for infractions. No one was happy about it. My head RA didn't like that my floor was loud if I was not there. My students didn't like it if I spent my evening telling them to be quiet. One of them finally decided to tell me, and my boss (the director of the hall), that if I ever touched her door again I would be dead of a shotgun blast.
I was removed from the floor at the end of the semester and given another. That student flunked out at the end of that semester anyway. I thought about that incident alot that year. The next yr was the yr my floor had a fire. I left the university for another degree in another state the next yr. I told people jokingly I had "done my tour of duty and been released." The yr after I left an RA at my university was killed by a student after discovering drugs and paraphenalia during a routine fire drill. In many ways I knew it could have been me. The RAs at my college at numerous, but we are tight. I spent alot of time on the phone with some of the ones I was closest to after that death. We all knew what it was like to find someone with something they were not supposed to have on campus.. and how close we had been to having it end badly.
Call your friends, call your kids. Call your old RA and tell them you are glad they are here.
As an RA I did not have an easy time of it. My first semester my first yr I was threatened. One of those "threats of a threat of a gun." Never having seen the gun or being threatened with it personally.. but having to take it seriously all the same. The floor I had was a wild bunch.. mostly freshman. Plenty of them were away from home for the first time and were setting their own rules for the first time. They didn't like having rules imposed upon them.. but living in a group situation always means rules. Like quiet hours. And guest hours. And a dry campus. So I spent a good deal of time that first yr writing people up for infractions. No one was happy about it. My head RA didn't like that my floor was loud if I was not there. My students didn't like it if I spent my evening telling them to be quiet. One of them finally decided to tell me, and my boss (the director of the hall), that if I ever touched her door again I would be dead of a shotgun blast.
I was removed from the floor at the end of the semester and given another. That student flunked out at the end of that semester anyway. I thought about that incident alot that year. The next yr was the yr my floor had a fire. I left the university for another degree in another state the next yr. I told people jokingly I had "done my tour of duty and been released." The yr after I left an RA at my university was killed by a student after discovering drugs and paraphenalia during a routine fire drill. In many ways I knew it could have been me. The RAs at my college at numerous, but we are tight. I spent alot of time on the phone with some of the ones I was closest to after that death. We all knew what it was like to find someone with something they were not supposed to have on campus.. and how close we had been to having it end badly.
Call your friends, call your kids. Call your old RA and tell them you are glad they are here.
