Employees in service-oriented, relationship-based jobs are prone to experiencing feelings of burnout. As such, paraprofessional staff in college housing environments, resident assistants (RAs), are not immune to its effects. Since navigating relationships is the root cause of burnout, it makes sense to focus on the relationships between…

Hiring the most capable students to serve in the RA role should be a top priority for housing departments due to their critical role as front-line student success employees. The effort to identify and hire RAs typically includes a substantial investment of personnel resources in hiring processes, where candidates are typically evaluated across…

Academic initiatives have become cornerstones in many residential operations on college and university campuses. Despite efforts to enhance academic outcomes of residential students, existing research on residential GPAs reveals either dated or questionable results. Programmatic functions focused on integrating academics into the college living…

A sense of mattering among college students has been found to have positive outcomes, including lower levels of anxiety and depression as well as increased self-esteem, wellness, happiness, and job satisfaction. However, the feeling of mattering among Resident Assistants (RAs) has received little attention in literature. This quantitative study…

Selecting resident assistants is integral to the success of housing operations on college and university campuses. Recruiting high-performing student staff is a priority in achieving departmental goals. Despite the importance of this process and the amount of time and resources expended during selection, there is scarce research investigating the…