On Campus Podcast – From Dorms to Communities: Fostering Belonging Where Students Live

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1. Introduction to the Podcast (00:00:06) Ed Butch introduces the podcast and today’s topic on the residential experience in higher education.
2. Dr. Amy Lorenz’s Background (00:01:08) Dr. Lorenz shares her journey as a first-generation college student and her experiences in residence life.
3. Undergraduate Experience at UConn (00:02:41) Dr. Lorenz reflects on her first year at UConn and the unique living-learning community she joined.
4. Career Path Transition (00:05:35) She outlines her shift from pre-med to higher education and the influences that guided her career choices.
5. First-Year Advisor Role (00:08:56) Dr. Lorenz describes her role as a first-year advisor, blending academic and residential support for students.
6. Evolution of Residential Experience (00:13:33) The discussion shifts to the importance of residential spaces in fostering student belonging and engagement.
7. Teaching Life Skills in Residence Halls (00:14:42) She discusses the role of residence life in teaching students essential life skills and conflict management.
8. Embedded Services in Residence Life (00:16:09) The conversation highlights innovations like embedded counseling services and late-night tutoring in residence halls.
9. Supporting Student Transitions (00:18:23) Dr. Lorenz explains how residence halls assist students in navigating their transition to college life.
10. Clear Communication for Students (00:19:02) She stresses the importance of clear, jargon-free communication to help students feel supported.
11. Tailored Engagement Strategies (00:20:02) Dr. Lorenz discusses the need for varied engagement strategies to cater to different student personalities.
12. Role of Resident Assistants (00:21:15) The conversation transitions to the critical role of RAs in fostering an inclusive and engaging residential culture.
13. Peer Mentors and Student Support (00:21:32) Discussion on the importance of peer mentors in supporting students through shared experiences.
14. Roles of Student Staff (00:21:51) Overview of various student staff roles and their responsibilities in community building.
15. Challenges in Creating Community (00:24:34) Identifying barriers to community building, including amenities and student engagement.
16. Addressing Loneliness and Isolation (00:26:50) Strategies to combat student loneliness and promote help-seeking behaviors.
17. Affordability and Resource Awareness (00:28:03) Discussion on addressing food insecurity and affordability through residential life programming.
18. Library of Things Initiative (00:29:45) Introduction of a library for students to borrow essential items, reducing financial burdens.
19. Creative Engagement Initiatives (00:32:09) Examples of successful, whimsical student engagement activities that foster community.
20. Redesigning Residential Life (00:35:55) Exploration of ideas for redesigning residential spaces to enhance student engagement and privacy.
21. Transitioning Out of Campus Life (00:38:02) Discussion on the need for programs to help students transition from campus living to independent life.

Ed Butch: Welcome to On Campus with CITI Program, the podcast where we explore the complexities of the campus experience with higher education experts and researchers. I’m your host, Ed Butch, and I’m thrilled to have you with us today. Before we get started, I want to quickly note that this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not designed to provide legal advice or guidance. In addition, the views expressed in this podcast are solely those of our guests.

Welcome to another month of the On Campus podcast. Continuing our season’s theme of the engaged university, today we’re going to talk about the residential experience and how these intentional spaces can build community, leadership and well-being. Today’s guest is Dr. Amy Lorenz, who serves as the director of Residence Life at the University of North Florida. Welcome to the pod, Amy.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Thank you so much for having me, Ed.

Ed Butch: Of course. So excited that you’re here and able to join me. So, today I want to start a little differently than I normally do, and we’re going to have you go back in time a little bit and start with your own story, and what did your residential experience look like as a student?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Sure. So, I figured I would start with a little bit of my pre-college experience because I think for so many of our students, what really is affecting them, of course, is what’s their background, and where are they coming from and what are they bringing to campus. So, for me, I was or am a first-generation college student, so the first in my family to pursue actually any kind of college. I know traditionally we talk about a bachelor’s degree, but my parents were not able to do that financially in any sense. So, I grew up in a working-class family, first-gen.

One of the things I share with people is we were actually homeless for a portion of my time in high school. I think it was my sophomore or junior year, and so for a variety of different reasons. But ended up essentially being in a hotel room with five of us for several months and then in a one-room cabin. And so, for me, a lot of my story is how do we help create home for people? I had a loving family, and a lot of social capital, a great network and all of that. But also have that piece of my story where that wasn’t ideal, but we also learned some great things through that lesson. So, that really shapes what I think about with students and the empathy I bring.

So, I went to UConn, University of Connecticut, as an undergrad. Got a full ride, which of course fantastic opportunity as a first-gen student. I still remember my first move-in day. I won’t go into all the weeds, but I will tell you parking was wild then. Parking’s wild at most places now.

Ed Butch: Always.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: It was super hot even in Connecticut, it was a brand new residence hall, did not have air conditioning. I think they’re finally installing it now. But what I think was really fun about that first year is I was placed in the engineering Living Learning Community, very much not as an engineering major. So, we had three floors. I think almost every male student in the building was an engineering major. And then about half of the women identified folks were engineering students, and then the rest of us were not.

Ed Butch: Were just there.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah, they were just there. And I still think about that experience to this day because there was still so much learning in community just by osmosis of so many people having that shared background. I was pre-med taking science classes, taking math classes. So, we had those shared classroom experiences. I will tell you honestly, it’s the closest I could probably compare to being on the Big Bang Theory show. That’s probably why I love that show. Late nights video gaming, playing Worms, Armageddon. So, it was fantastic and not at all what I would have expected not being in that major or anything of that nature. So, anyway, I spent my time at Uconn. Lived in that first year community and then our honors community. Our honors room, our suite, we were the fun folks in the honors building. We might have ridden razor scooters around with superhero capes on our back. I know that sounds really silly.

But our community was suite style, another new facility. And people had the ability to be a little bit closed off. And later on down the road I’ll talk about how facilities and design can shape community. But we really were trying to bring people into our space and be around because people had their own bathrooms and living rooms, and could be insulated. And so, lived there for a couple of years, lived in the sorority house on campus. So, overall really positive experience. But I also know that there were hard things along the way. So, as we talk about what students experience, I didn’t have every perfect roommate experience. I had conflict that I had to address, particularly being a chapter president in a sorority house full of 30 women. I had the long walks to class, I had the things about trying to figure out who’s cleaning things, all that jazz. So, lots of fantastic positive experiences, but certainly the challenging things that come with just living with other people, too.

Ed Butch: Definitely.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: So, that’s the quick fire hose version of my undergraduate experience in housing.

Ed Butch: Perfect. Well, great background. And I mean obviously a lot of different experiences as well, which I think is really cool there as well. So, let’s then move forward in the timeline then. And can you talk us through your career path since then? So, you mentioned that you came in that first year as a pre-med major, but you’re a director of Residence Life now, so what has come between then and now?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Sure. So, what’s funny about changing from pre-med to down the road, I think a lot of first gen students, there are only certain career paths that I really knew about. Not because my parents were shielding them from them, but I give the example of kinesiology. I had no idea what kinesiology was back then. Now we think about it as exercise science, but there’s so many fields you’re not exposed to if you’re just not around that collegiate experience. I had seen Patch Adams and decided I was going to be a doctor just like Robin Williams. I continued to be great at the sciences as an undergrad, but I was like, I don’t know that I want to go to school forever, and I’m not really great at super fine details, which is probably not what you want in a physician. And so, just thinking about that and reflecting along the way. What led me into higher ed actually changed my major as an undergrad to elementary education. I taught in a kindergarten classroom and I was like, oh, no.

Ed Butch: I feel like that’s how it started for so many of us.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: I loved babysitting before college and doing a lot of that kind of work. I’d done tutoring as an undergrad in a community, so it felt like a natural fit. And then again realized, okay, this is a mismatch, but we’re close. We’re getting closer. But like a lot of folks in higher ed, I then started doing things like serving as an orientation leader, and getting involved in my sorority, and becoming chapter president, and doing a lot of work with leadership development and working with campus partners. And then somebody along the way, Maria Sadati, the director of orientation, she was like, “You know you can do this as a job as did Judy Preston who is the director of fraternity sorority life at Uconn.” Same kind of thing. So, I had mentors saying, “You can do this if you want to and let’s help show you the way.” So, that’s how I shifted over and it felt really good. I had done really good intentional reflecting upon what made sense.

So, went to Miami University in Ohio, did the college student personnel higher education program, really with the intent that I wanted to be a director of fraternity and sorority life. That was my career goal. And I think as a lot of us know what your career goal is at 22 changes over time. I ended up being a resident director there my first year of graduate school and then transitioned into an assistantship into the fraternity sorority life office. Had great mentors, great community. For those who don’t know lots about Miami University, there’s a lot of intentional building between in and out of class experiences. So, that’s what I loved about my time there.

In between my first and second year of grad school, I met my now husband, Tom. And so, life things happen, too. We make career choices and life choices based off of who are the humans that are important to us. And so, wanted to stay in Oxford, which is a great town. And so, after graduation, became a first year advisor. So, in that role, and I think it’s changed now, but I essentially was a hall director and academic advisor for the 200-so students in my building. Really great experience. Very interesting to address a conduct situation with a student on a Friday night and then on Tuesday, be talking with them about their career goal to be a physician or an engineer. And it’s not that those things… they’re not totally dissonant from one another, but you’re really seeing the whole student at a point.

Ed Butch: That is for sure.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: I think though what really prompted me forward with that experience was that blend of in-class and out of class experiences. We were trained with academic advisors just as much as we were working with student life types of things. We were doing conduct. So, there was this idea of the system of higher ed. And that’s carried me through as we continue to talk. It’s how do we look at those partnerships? Students look at institutions as institutions, they’re not going, “Well, the housing department said this, my professor said this.” They’re going, “This institution is like this. This is their whole experience.”

So, I really felt that there continued on to work in as an assistant director in the honors and scholars program. And again, like most honors programs, really engaged in and out of the classroom. Did a lot of work with faculty, a lot of work on the living, learning community side of things with faculty. And again, then life happened. My husband took a position of promotion down in southern Ohio. And so, I took a job at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. What a special place. That’s where I ended up getting my EDD from. Even though you completed it years later after moving, but there’s really something special about Appalachia. So many students were first gen students and just really excited to be there, to be engaged.

It was very different than Miami. Miami is a fantastic place, but there are a lot of students who… they’re the third generation of students who have been in college. It’s a different way of looking at school when you’re the first person from in the holler who’s able to come to campus and pursue your dreams. So, loved the energy. Our family was super engaged and welcomed there. I was the assistant director of academic initiatives in Housing and Residence Life. So, again, continuing this work to do not just housing, but also how do I work with honors? How do I work with chemistry? How do we teach students about sustainability? How do we just blend all of that learning together?

After that, I was recruited to take a job as a general manager, which then shifted into being a director of operations with Capstone on campus management. So, that’s one of the P3, the public private partnership companies. That the site was hosted at Bowling Green State University near my husband’s family. So, again, life things. Able to be literally in walking distance from my in-laws when the kids were young, but also to learn a really different functional area of Housing and Residence Life.

I’ll back up real quick and tell you that I’m not somebody who thought I was going to work in housing forever. And I actually think we need some more of those people because we bring different perspectives and things like that. But as I realized, this is where I’m landing and this seems to be a niche. I also recognize that I don’t know anything about air conditioning, or elevators or plumbing. And so, it took a really intentional shift in my journey to supervising a team. Lots of lessons learned along the way.

I was, as the director, the highest level supervisor there. And then my supervisor was in Alabama. Great supervisor, Corey Reedy. But when you’re sort of the top person, there’s, I think, a lot of pressure, a lot of autonomy. And I learned a lot of things. I made mistakes and I think those mistakes in a lot of ways helped me then learn a lot of good lessons for being a director of Residence Life down the road. Overall, learned square peg, round hole though, loved what I learned. Also knew that I’m a Res Life LLC, Living Learning Community person at heart. And I convinced Tom to move my family a thousand miles away from everybody to take this job. I came in as the associate director and then the last couple of years they created this role, which has been great. So, yeah, just continuing to do the good work, I hope. But bringing that frame of having that experience in the different functional areas and Housing and Residence Life. So, that is how I got here in, I don’t know, however many minutes.

Ed Butch: Well, fantastic timeline. Thank you for that. And I’ll let everyone know. Also, our paths, of course, did cross for a few years when we were at Miami, which was awesome. I was also served in that first year advisor role for a few years, which was like you said, a fantastic learning experience getting both that residential component and academic component there as well. And put me into the academic side of things after I left there then as well. But let’s really start to dive into the residential experience a little bit. And why do you think that it is so crucial to student belonging and engagement on campus?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: I think one of the number one things that we always talk about in Housing and Residence Life is that when you live on campus, you can roll right outside and you’re right in your tutoring, you’re right in your classes, all of that. So, that’s number one. Proximity just helps you be around everything, versus going home, or going off campus or wherever, and you’re able to have that distance or a little bit more dissonance from what the campus experience is like. So, proximity, super important, especially for a first year student trying to navigate their way.

I think the other thing is our key role in Housing and Residence Life is, in my mind, to teach students about adulting and life skills, and having healthy relationships with one another. Whatever student’s background, they might have had great experiences in learning about laundry or how to deal with conflict with somebody else, and then others have not. And then others are just, they’re typical 18, 19-year-olds. We certainly have lots of non-traditional students now, too. But we’re trying to help launch them into what real life looks like. And real life includes your partner, your roommate, leaving their socks on the floor or being really feisty about something and you are caught off guard. And so, there’s so much to learn in the residential space about conflict management and things of that nature.

We can embed so much into the Housing and Residence Life experience, too. So, when students are going back to their halls, we’re able to continue that education. But in the classroom. So, with the Living Learning Community, for example, you’ve got 25 besties or hopeful besties that are all taking the same classes as you. So, you can walk down the hall in your pajamas and engage with somebody and ask questions, and there’s less barriers than if you didn’t have that opportunity.

Ed Butch: So, I think one of the things that we’ve seen in a shift over the years with the residential experience is, it evolving from just a place to sleep to this really active learning in social environment. So, can you talk about a little bit how you’ve seen that evolution within your career?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah, sure. So, I think I will say just in general over the course of being… I’ve been on college campuses for 25 years, which is wild to me. If you include my time as an undergrad to now. Really once we got to the mid two thousands, that was already happening. So, a lot of my experience is where… it already aligns with when that happened. So, I haven’t seen personally as drastic of a shift. I think we’re just continuing to create and try new things.

So, for example, I think we’ve seen this idea of embedded services come more and more to light. So, for example, we have embedded counselors in Housing and Residence Life. So, we have a counseling intern who lives on campus. They’re not expected to be the first responder to things at 2:00 AM, but they are more integrated into what’s happening in Housing and Residence Life. So, they know the vibe and they know what’s happening. And then in our Housing and Residence Life office, we have offices where counselors are providing services. The goal is not that they don’t only have to see Housing and Residence Life students, but it’s to help bring students into our space. And they’re also seeing counselors, too. So, it’s a cozy space. They can have that experience.

I think another example would be for us here at University of North Florida, we have late night tutoring in the residence halls, from 6:00 to 10:00 PM. So, I think more and more we’re really at the forefront of thinking about the services that should be existing after 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. There’s certainly tutoring happening really by the same folks. It’s headed by our student academic success center here in undergraduate studies. They’re doing things during the day throughout campus, but we now also fund tutoring in the residence halls late at night because that’s when students do homework. They do homework at 9:00 and 10 o’clock at night or even later. But you can only do so much. So, I think what we’re really seeing is that mindset of the campus doesn’t shut down at 5:00 PM and Housing and Residence Life can provide an avenue to provide those services.

Ed Butch: Right. Right. Exactly. So, I think those are some really, really cool intentional designs that you’ve really implemented, especially the counseling. That’s not something that I’ve heard of, but I really like that aspect. Again, having worked in residence halls and having to call counselors anytime of day or night, but having that intern there who could potentially respond if needed, I think is a really, really great way to build that in and make them part of the community then as well. But I want to talk a little bit about transition to college. You talked a little bit about your own transition at the beginning from high school to college. But I guess how do you see residence halls really supporting students transition to college, especially if they might feel overwhelmed or disconnected when they arrive?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah. So, I think a few things. One is Peter Magoza always said, make the dubious obvious. I think one of the main things we’ve really tried to do over the last few years here, and I’ve seen it at other institutions, is to get the jargon out of the way and really try to think about what do we tell students? What’s the language we use? How do we shorten it? How do we be clear?

So, for example, we’ve really had to spend a lot of time telling people that things are free. That is not something I would have thought about because so much of what Housing and Residence Life has typically provided for students has been free. But it’s really taking off our hat. We’ve had to say this late night tutoring is free. You don’t have to pay for it. You can just stroll in your pajamas. So, I think rethinking some of the assumptions we have, that sounds so simple, but I think that’s one of the big things.

I think it’s timely delivery of information to students. If we fire hose information to students all in the first couple of days here, it’s overwhelming and it’s also just not timely. So, an example I would give here is, we don’t do all of the roommate agreement stuff your first weekend. So, your first weekend here, we want you to know we’re going to give some screenshots and the QR code for where to find our roommate resources. But we’re going to wait till a couple of weeks in and you’ve established a little bit of a relationship with your roommate before we’re going to do roommate agreement things because we’ve maybe had our first squabble. So, it’s thinking developmentally, but also in terms of information overload, what’s the right kind of thing to deliver to a student when?

The other thing I would add to is being thoughtful about what students might or might not want based off of their personality, their style. Are they extroverts? Are they introverts? So, we know our partners in student life here at the institution are going to do the big bang-up programs. They’re going to do the silent disco, they’re going to have the bounce houses, that kind of stuff. So, in Housing and Residence Life, we very much intentionally thought about how can we have these sort of drop-in spaces? Maybe this residential area has a lawn party going on, and you can pop over with your bestie or whatnot and do lawn tic-tac-toe. But over here we’ve got grab-and-go cookies.

And so, the level of engagements may be a little bit different so that if you’re not ready to just go out and meet 300 people, like extroverts like me, that you’ve got something that you can step into. And we’ve also been intentional about how do we create these buddy system things, whether that’s with your RA, your student staff member or our learning community assistant. We don’t drive people along to everything, but how can we help create that ability for a student to get to a space? Because it is really intimidating for a lot of people to walk into a space with hundreds of people if they don’t know anybody.

Ed Butch: That’s for sure. And then what you just said there also about the RA. So, that’s a great segue into my next thought in terms of what do you really see the role of an RA, or a resident assistant or peer leader play in creating this culture of inclusion and engagement within the residential experience?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah, there’s so much more real to students. There’s so much research out there about peer mentors, and their role and what they can do to help support students. They know the real life. They know the real tea. They’ve done the classes, they know the professors, they know the campus from their perspective. I’m only going to know it from mine and as cool as I think I am, or I think our staff is in terms of our professional staff, the student staff really know what’s going on and can dismantle some of those barriers for students.

One thing I think departments can be thoughtful about is how much do we put on an RA versus different types of roles on campus. That’s probably getting ahead. I know there’s some things we’re going to talk about later on down the road. But we’ve created some student staff positions now. So, we have three student staff positions. RAs, we want their primary role to be community building, but that’s intentional conversations. That is the area wide. It’s in the floor programs and helping people get to know their neighbors, but it’s more about understanding the fabric of their floor and helping those folks get along together. And of course, the crisis response and on-call things.

Our learning community assistants, they are not RAs, they are not the policy enforcers. They are doing learning community things only. So, we don’t have those two roles overlapping as much. Of course, they both care about students. They both talk with students, but the premed learning community assistant is doing those things. And then we have a new role called engagement assistance, and that’s like our fun squad. We very intentionally taken a little bit of that off of the RA position specifically because there’s only so much we should be expecting student staff to do.

So, I think the role is super important. I think it’s thinking about how can we embed those expectations in a way that doesn’t overwhelm a student, a young student too, who’s also trying to do their career and all of that. I think those are the big ones, is being thoughtful about the role, being mindful about what those expectations are, helping campus partners understand what those things are. Some campuses are like, “RAs, bring everybody to the basketball game,” on top of responding to a thing at 1:00 AM. That’s why we’ve designed this new team of student staff where they’re the ones doing the soccer pep rally. They’re the ones doing those things. And it’s not that we don’t want RAs doing fun things. We certainly do. But we also, I think, have learned a lot of lessons collectively about what work looks like on our campuses and off campuses, too. So, how do we do that in a sustainable way?

Ed Butch: Yeah, I think that’s great, especially because even looking into from student staff to entry level roles within higher ed. So, I think you see the same thing with a lot of hall directors within that residential experience and also academic advisors that a lot of things outside of just running a building or helping students with classes are thrown at them as well. So, I think universities, it would behoove them to look at that for their entry level roles, the way that you’ve looked at that for the students’ staff roles as well.

So, let’s talk a little bit. We’ve talked a lot about some of the great things that you’re doing and stuff, but what do you really see as some of the challenges or barriers to creating these communities?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: So, I think one is, let’s talk about amenities. So, one of the things I talked about earlier from my experience is more and more of our popular amenities across a lot of campus colleges have more barriers in between people. Students like and want their own bathrooms. They don’t get excited about the community bathroom experience, which I totally understand. And there are more and more amenities that are more insulated. So, students have their own living room together. And I love that. As somebody who has my own home, I like going home to my own living room. So, it totally makes sense.

But I think one very specific facilities barrier we have to think about is there are more doors between people. And so, how do we think about spaces, whether we’re building them or they exist already, to still create gathering spaces so that students can be together in some way. I think another piece is, of course there are different federal and state legislations out there that impact what we can and can’t say, or can and can’t do in different ways. But we still can do a whole lot. So, for example, one of the things I’m really mindful, of course right now in a podcast, I’m talking a lot, but I try really hard in spaces with students to know that my role is to listen, and to back up, and to be empathetic and to amplify their voices in those sorts of things. And so, I think that’s something that we all can continue to do.

One thing that I wish I could wave my magic wand and change would be, I really would love to find a way to help students self-advocate. I think that that’s a huge barrier always for young adults to have the confidence to ask for help and to ask for help in a time where it can make a big difference for them. But I think now too, when we add layers with COVID, and constant Wi-Fi, and TikTok advice and all those other things, I think we’re finding it even more challenging to find ways to get students to seek the help that they need.

I think a strategy there is thinking about more and more of what we can put online. We have an incident report where students can report a concern with their roommate. Because those concerns, again, come up at 2:00 AM or 10:00 PM and all those sorts of things. And why make it that they have to come in and meet with us? Maybe eventually they do, but let’s create a little bit less of a barrier to entry to having those situations pop up. So, jumping ahead to strategies, but I think that there’s just a lot of loneliness and isolation that we’re battling against right now.

Ed Butch: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, it’s interesting, especially because we, obviously not just students, but we all live online right now. So, I think as much as we can go that direction and giving them the access, like you said, at any time of day or night, I think is really important for them as well. So, you talked a little bit about this with the counseling intern that lives on campus with your staff and everything as well. But how are you really seeing campuses address issues like affordability, food insecurity, mental health, specifically through residential life programming?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: I think looking at do we know the resources that we have? That’s number one. So, if we have a food pantry, are we letting students know about that? I think another thing is thinking about student employment, whether in Housing and Residence Life or other areas. What are we paying students? What are their hourly rates? And what are the benefits and things like that? For us specifically this year, we’ve removed some of the barriers related to outside employment and involvement for our student staff. So, it’s pretty common at institutions to say, if you’re an RA or whatever, name the student staff member that you can only work X amount of hours outside of this job.

There’s certainly sometimes institutional things if the student’s also wanting to work on campus. But a lot of students have to work to afford to be in college. And so, just from a policy level, are we being thoughtful about that? And we’ve decided if you can do the job and you can do this other thing, and still be a student and meet your expectations, who are we to say that 27 hours is undoable for you versus 20? So, we’ve changed that requirement and loosened it up. I think we might see some developmental challenges for some students who aren’t going to be able to work within that level of responsibility.

But anyway, the point being, how can we create a place where they can work to get the money that they need to afford the life that they need to have? For some students, that gives them the opportunity to maybe do some research or some paid internship things that they would otherwise be able to have. So, policy-wise, are we thinking about ways that we can be inclusive. For many campuses, living on campus requires a certain level of a meal plan contract. What does that look like? And are there spaces for students who might not be able to afford X, Y, Z meal plan? So, I think there’s a lot of policy things we can think about.

I think it’s thinking about new things, too. So, this year we launched a library of things. We might change the name of it, but we worked with faculty in a program off-campus, a nonprofit to launch a library of things. We actually have a free little library too, the little book stands. That’s really fun.

Ed Butch: Oh, yeah. That’s great.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: But we have a lot of things you can just check out at the desk, a toolkit, a vacuum. And while that might not sound earth-shattering, it’s just a different way to say, you don’t have to go buy a #100 vacuum to keep your room clean. We have some cleaning supplies, too. We don’t want cleaning your bathroom to be a barrier to you living in a healthy environment. So, how can we get you those things? So, that’s just another small example of different ways. We’re just trying to break that barrier for students.

Ed Butch: Yeah. I mean, it might seem small, but it’s really not. I mean, I think that library of things is a great idea. And I would say if a lot of people out there listening don’t have that on their campus, they should look into it because having to go buy a $100 vacuum or bathroom cleaning supplies or things like that, that can be a lot on a student, especially when they have those restrictions and working or maybe they can’t work for another reason or another. And I think that’s really a fantastic way to go about that. That’s great.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah. And I think it’s just one of those things where so many of our Housing and Residence Life policies are related to health and safety inspections. And so, if we’re going to expect somebody to have a clean space, why not break down the barrier at least the best we can to say that we have these tools available. We did do a lot of thinking about liability, and what if somebody breaks the vacuum and all of that? And I’m happy to say we haven’t had that problem. I could be surprised we’re at the end of year one. But I think for a lot of housing residents, like professionals, that’s where our brain goes first, is if I have these things out there, what’s going to get broken? What’s going to happen? But it’s been another way that we’ve felt that the students are saying it helps them feel like they’re at home. It helps them have one more thing that’s a resource or tool for them.

Ed Butch: That’s obviously a very creative thing, just that helps students feel more at home and things like that. But have you seen maybe some engagement initiatives that put on by some of your student staff that you’ve thought are just really creative and really well received by the students?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Sure. Yeah. So, one happened a few years ago, I thought it was so great. They called it Shrek Fest. So, Shrek like the movie.

Ed Butch: Okay.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: And they had an onion eating contest. There was a costume contest. Just a bunch of different really goofy things. And I think why it was so successful, of course, we’re giggling already, but it brings whimsy into a space. A lot of our students, they’re working, they’re doing classes, they’re stressed out. And so, I think just this ridiculous idea of, “I could go eat an onion or better yet, watch somebody else eat onions,” brought a lot of laughter to this space. We see a lot of success with our just basic stress management things. I love all the things we do with our residential curriculum. I think sometimes we have thought so deeply about what are we teaching students that we forget that sometimes they just want to sit down, and make slime, and color and chill out. And we can’t do that all the time. But again, when we think about our homes, we think about it being a place where we can release and relax.

And so, we have seen slime making nights with 60 people because people just want to chill out and they do want to engage with other people. I think that’s another thing we have to remember, is they do want to engage. We can’t assume that they don’t want to. We had a soccer pep rally that I mentioned earlier. Students made posters and started walking, and people just kept joining in, and they ended up with a hundred people walking to a soccer game. And so, I think there’s a couple of things going on there. I think a lot of those are low barrier entry things. I can go, whether I have a best friend or not. I can color, I don’t have to engage or I can start to engage. So, I think we have to be thoughtful about those things.

I also think we’ve got this generation now that’s not post-COVID, but they’re looking to engage in a different way than maybe our students were four or five years ago, where they’re like, “I don’t really know how to do this.” These students want to be in community. We just have to give them a little bit more tools about how to do that successfully. So, yeah. So, I think thinking about those things. The other thing that I think has been… or I know has been successful has been these opportunities where it’s a little bit of a choose your own adventure. So, for our Living Learning Community students, we had a night, I’m forgetting the name, but back in the fall where we had different stations about different academic things. So, career services had careers and cookies. They had some prompts on the table, some running slides. And really the information was very bite-sized because we’re also talking about attention and where can we grab students’ attention? Students are not necessarily going to want to sit down for an hour long lecture.

Ed Butch: Not at all.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: But they could go-

Ed Butch: Not after they’ve gone through classes all day, right?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Right. Right. So, they could go into this space. There was enough information there to engage if you sat in that space for five or 10 minutes. But a lot of them didn’t. They stayed. They learned more. They asked questions, but they weren’t just listening to somebody talk. They had questions on the table, they had cookies, they had props up on the slides, they had sample resumes, and then they could dip into the next room where they were learning about how do I prepare for advising? But in each station, it was interactive and it wasn’t super duper hardcore facilitated from their perspective. From the staff perspective, it was very intentional. But again, these ways that they can jump in, get a little bit more information, and then also how do I find more information later, whetting their appetite.

Ed Butch: Definitely. Great. So, you’ve obviously had some experiences at multiple different institutions, at a public-private partnership as well. So, I think it’s just fun to maybe think about if you were to be able to redesign one part of this traditional residential life experience that we see everywhere, what do you think it would be? And why?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: What a great question. I think it’s something I’ve really thought about for a long time, and I don’t know that I have just one answer. Let me think. I think one, like I said, it’s thinking about if I could go in and design a facility that both provides students with that privacy, but also gets them to engage in community, that’s awesome. There are some places that do pods where there’s a gathering space in between rooms. That’s a little bit different than a lounge, though. It’s almost like a Hogwarts living room. If I could design Hogwarts, that’s what I would do.

Ed Butch: There we go.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: But I know that’s not necessarily exactly what we’re going for, but a place where students are coming in from their classes, they’re talking with each other, they’re having fun together. That’s what I would love to design from a facilities perspective. When I think about staffing and organizational structure, I think we still have work to do to think about, as you shared, what do we have an entry level Residence Life coordinator, hall director do? And what’s maybe needing to evolve into a specialized role? So, for example, here we’ve got a coordinator who just does the Living Learning Community things. And I think we’re thinking about how do we have somebody focused specifically on recruitment and selection or training and development? Because doing that work on top of caring for your residents and a building and all that, it’s a lot. I can’t just go out and hire six, seven more full-time roles, but how can I strategically think about working towards that place so that our roles can really do what they were designed to do without them blossoming into these 70 hour week positions.

Ed Butch: Right. Right. Exactly. Because that’s what you see with a lot of entry level residence hall director roles and everything. So, I think that’s perfect for sure. All right. So, to wrap up here, I always like to have you… we’ve gone back in time. We have presence, so I always want to look ahead a little bit as well. And what is an idea or shift that you would either like to see or see coming in terms of approaching the residential experience?

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Great question. I think one would be how do we think about transitioning students to their time off of campus? Whether that’s mid their time after their sophomore year, they decide to live off campus, whether home or in an apartment, or as they’re graduating. I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I know from doing this work for a while, folks float off into their life and that’s okay, that’s wonderful. We want them to be good, productive humans, workers, whatever that looks like for their lives and their goals. I wish there was a way to help guide that transition and say, what did you learn? What do you wish you learned? We do some of that assessment and all of that.

But it’s a very ambiguous answer for you, but I feel like there’s a missing piece there to really help students take away, “Here’s what I learned here on campus and here’s how it’s carrying over into my life.” Because I know I certainly, with a partner, and two kids and cats, I have a roommate conflict every day. And some are little and some are bigger. But what are those things that I learned along the way that helped me understand how to do that in a healthy way? None of us do that perfectly, but those sorts of things I’d love to find a way to help that transition.

Ed Butch: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and for me, I lived on campus all four years of undergrad, and then I started my career both in graduate school and then my first professional role as a hall director. And so, I didn’t rent my first apartment until I was in my mid-20s. And so, I feel like I’m this old person at that point trying to figure out what does renting an apartment look like? How do you get utilities hooked up? So, I think having some of those programs would be major for people as they’re working in that transition and being more intentional about that. So, I think that’s a great thing to look forward to.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah, like I’m 42 years old and we bought our first house five years ago. And before that, lived in on-campus housing or a variety of different things provided by work or whatnot. And so, learning how much money it costs if you’ve got an HVAC thing go wrong, and learning about what happens if you lose your keys or need to change all the locks to your house. And there’s things that we implicitly hope we’re teaching students, with things like lockout charges or whatnot. But it is very different to then go to your house and go, “Oh, my word, this is $700?”

Ed Butch: Right.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: So, yeah, I think there’s-

Ed Butch: And they’re not coming in five minutes either.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Yeah, and I think that’s really what it is, it’s not only is there explicit stuff, but the implicit things we’re hoping students learn. How do we help that come front and center and say, “This is what we’re helping you learn, and what can we continue to bring to you that’s useful?” And they’re hungry for that. I think that’s why we see students coming to things like financial wellness workshops. They want to go on, and earn a good salary, and have the home that works for them and all of that jazz. So, how do we continue to think about what do we bring to them?

Ed Butch: Thank you so much again for taking the time today to chat with me and giving our listeners some great advice as well.

Dr. Amy Lorenz: Of course. Thank you for having me.

Ed Butch: I invite all of our listeners to visit citiprogram.org to learn more about our courses and webinars on research, ethics, compliance, and higher education. I look forward to bringing you more expert guests to discuss what’s happening on campus. Special thanks to our line producer, Evelyn Fornell. Production and distribution support provided by Raymond Longaray and Megan Stuart.