Community Building Rotation 1: South Carrick Hall

I'm late. I know it. Per usual.

But, better late than never to blog about this awesome community builder, right?! Right.

This time I attended a program in South Carrick Hall put on by the lovely 10th floor RA, Kristin Samples. It was titled BYOB--{Bring Your Own Bowl}--and was her unique spin on an open door night. I didn't follow directions though, and I didn't bring a bowl. Not to worry, Kristin had spares! Huzzah!

Kristin held the program at 10:00 PM. She went around and knocked on all of her suite doors to see who was home. When they answered the door and agreed to participate in the program, she let each suite pick out a different box of cereal. The idea was that residents would migrate from suite to suite in search of their favorite cereal, and meet other residents along the way! Kristin provided the milk in her room, and she provided all types--skim, 2%, almond milk, soy milk, literally anything anyone could have wanted. Residents began with just cereal, but by the end of the night, they were sharing birthday cake, decorating ideas, and more. It was very neat to see the conversation progress throughout the night. In all, Kristin had 19 residents participate, with at least one person from 9 out of her 12 suites!

Check out some of the fun below.

South Carrick AHD Candice and myself just prior to getting our cereal!

Residents stopping by Kristin's room for some milk.

Hallway fun!

Intermingling.

New friends say cheese!

Great job, Kristin!

Until next time,

Chelsea Oliver
WAGA

Community Building Rotation 1: Reese Hall

We painted over Lee Corso, y'all!

In fairness, we would have painted over anyone. No offense, Lee.

On Thursday, September 13th, I joined Reese 5 East RA Denis Korobkov and his residents for a rock painting excursion. It's not uncommon for RAs to take their floors to paint the rock, especially if they work in a predominantly freshman building. Denis, however, took painting the rock one step further. His bulletin board for the month of September included history of the rock, as well as photographs of some notable rock paintings (think "Fire Fulmer," the incredible mash-up of Derek and Vince Dooley painted just before the UT v. UGA game last year, etc). It also featured a blank rock on which residents were encouraged to add their own rock designs. Denis took submissions for the design the floor would paint during this program, and so on that night we set out to paint Smokey holding an alligator carcass.

We met in the 5E study room where Denis fueled his residents with free Red Bull. We headed out to the rock, admired the current painting, and then made our mark. The whole painting took over 2 hours, but the end product was fantastic! We endured some hateful screams, some encouraging words, and lots of "Go Vols" while we were there, but all--or, most--of it was in good spirits.

In total there were about 10 residents from 5E that participated, plus Denis, myself, and Reese Hall Director John Michael VanHorn. Also, about half way through we were joined by the lovely ladies of Humes 2W and RA Jasmine Collins. This was a great surprise, but a wonderful way to connect all of these residents with new people they otherwise would not have met!

In short, it was awesome.

Great job, Denis!

The Rock as we found it.

"Alright, guys, who wants to be the first one to paint over Lee?"

Just doctoring up the paint job a bit.

The tape is going up!

Progress report.

Staff bonding!

The sketcher (in the green) and the painter (in the black).

The men of Reese with their finished product!

Until next time,

Chelsea Oliver
WAGA

RA of the Month, August 2012

Congratulations to Desta Bume of North Carrick Hall on being chosen as the West Area RA of the Month for the month of August! Desta is a first-year RA serving the residents of the 6th floor in North Carrick.

"Desta Bume serves as a Resident Assistant to the students of North Carrick's sixth floor. Desta has proven himself to be instrumental in community building and maintaining appropriate community standards, still less than one month into the new year. Desta exceed the expectation of head staff in both areas.

The programmatic requirements for Resident Assistants during the first six weeks is that there be at least one community builder each week to help facilitate camaraderie and relationship-building on the floors and establish a friendly face between the RA and residents. Desta completed three programs during one week in August where he participated in Volleyball, Ultimate Frisbee, and Four-Square with his residents. This is beyond the expectations of the model but perfectly in synch with an RA who wants to personally know and interact with his residents and the types of relationships head staff applaud and wish every Resident Assistant developed.

Furthermore, Desta is committed to maintaining a high regard for community standards. The North Carrick staff has taken on a broken windows approach to damages that may have occurred in previous years. Any time there are damages on a floor, our mission is to control the damage, request repair, and hold those accountable who may have harmed others on their floor, even in the most minor of instances to say we are a community that cares about everyone affected as in a true social contract. In one instance in August, Desta found someone vandalizing door decorations on his floor in the middle of the night, decorations he had just put up to welcome residents days earlier. While this individual and friends were tearing those door decorations belonging to other residents down, Desta took the initiative to leave his room and address those responsible. He immediately escorted the resident to the front desk where he had him schedule an appointment to meet with head staff.

Desta also developed a good rapport with the staff in the  month of August throughout training and setting a positive attitude for the staff and trend setting a new dance others on staff picked up on during training. Desta has been fabulous with administrative tasks and informs head staff of security related concerns while also maintaining a good humor about things. He consistently makes an effort to know the people on his floor. In consideration of Desta's efforts this past month, he earns consideration for RA of the month for August."

Congratulations, Desta! The honor is well-deserved!

Chelsea  Oliver
WAGA

Community Building Rotation 1: Morrill Hall

Brace yourselves. What I'm about to say might come as a shock.

I'm a nerd.

Okay, you probably already knew that. If you've been to my office at all, you've probably noticed my bobble head doll of Sheldon Cooper or my plush normal distribution. You've never been to my apartment, and probably never will venture there, but inside, you'll find a Periodic Table shower curtain, a coffee mug with the rules to "Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock," a sweatshirt that quoting "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate," and a board game collection that could rival any of the residence halls' collections. The signs are there.

So, it should come as no surprise that when I heard Morrill was hosting a Trivia night, I immediately cleared my schedule (okay, so it was open, but I would have) so that I could attend.

Seventh and Eighth floor RAs Drew Nash and Marji Itayem put together a trivia night for their residents. These residents are all a part of the Honors LLC, and as such, were just as excited about trivia night as I was. I'll be honest, though, I was not expecting it to be anything like it actually was.

If you've ever played trivia in a restaurant, you'll know that typically a question is asked, the table talks it over and then walks a piece of paper up to the announcer and submits it. But in Morrill, things are always taken one step further. Master-Of-All-Things-Computers Drew organized the whole trivia night to be paperless! I don't know anything about computers, so I can't even begin to describe HOW he did it, but I can just give an overview of how it worked.

Step 1: Residents divide into groups of 4. Each group must have at least one female and one male member.  Each group has some piece of technology (i.e. laptop, tablet).
Step 2: Drew assigns each group a number.
Step 3: Questions are displayed on Drew's super nice TV. It could be the 7th floor lobby TV, but I doubt it.
Step 4: Residents go to morrillhall.com/7 and find a link to the Trivia Night submissions sheet. Residents enter the answer and submit.
Step 5: The answers submitted by each team magically pop up on Drew's Ipad.
Step 6: Drew opens an excel spreadsheet and enters the score for each team.

It was pretty ingenious.

The trivia topics had a little bit of something for everyone. There were a total of 6 categories with 5 questions each, for a total of 30 questions. The topics included UT, Housing Policies, Politics, Sports, Movies and TV, and...I don't remember. There was one other topic--maybe it was a miscellaneous one.
Marji served as the Alex Trebek of trivia night, reading each of the questions aloud, and also perusing the lobby to ensure that there was no googling going on--not that that would ever happen. :)

I partnered with three gentlemen of the 7th floor, and an 8th floor lady joined in about half way through. Needless to say, we dominated. Well--dominated until the bonus. At the time, I didn't know that David Cameron is the current Prime Minister of Great Britain, but you can bet I'll never forget it. My team finished second, but Drew graciously allowed us to share in some of the prize (Thanks, Drew)!

Marji and Drew put on a hugely successful community builder that targeted multiple community development objectives and also garnered a lot of interest from residents. The program had an academic tone about it, but it also encouraged good communication, use of social skills in meeting new people, and collaboration techniques.

There were about 30 residents in attendance, which is huge! The 7th floor lobby was full! And--perhaps one of the most exciting pieces--everyone stayed the whole time! Seeing the interactions of both Drew and Marji with their residents was so encouraging. It is evident that both have worked very hard during these first few weeks to get to know their residents and to connect them to the floor.

Enough of my blabbing--enjoy some pictures!

Listening intently to the question!

Focus on: 1) Drew's awesome setup there in the front. 2) The intensity and focus of the residents participating. 3) The empty jar of salsa. I forgot to mention that Marji and Drew provided snacks!

Group discussion and thought.

There's my team! You can obviously see how excited I was.

Huh? Picture? The lovely residents just before we began!

Great job, Marji and Drew! I'm proud of you!

Until next time,

Chelsea Oliver
WAGA

Hall Flair-South Carrick

The lovely ladies at South Carrick went all out with door decs that matched their large elevator lobby boards.

SOUTH CARRICK

Rachel Taylor

Ashley Jakubek

Beka Patton

Elizabeth Ige



Haley Leach

Kelsey Theodore

 

Kristin Samples

Laura Kendrick

Laura Reasor

Sarah Childers

Sophia Linville

 

Hall Flair-Reese

The Reese men know their way around the Ellison machine.  See how they used the die cuts as well as some other clever techniques to create their door tags.

REESE



Alex Ditmanson

Brad Ward



Caden Hill

Cartavius Black



Cody Rau

Collin Napier



David Hayes

Denis Korobkov



Joe Carpenter

PJ Miller



Ryan Clark

Saif Haque



Tucker Hunley



Zach Adams