Recently, potential Sophomore Advisors (SA) and Resident Advisors (RA), who serve as peer mentors, confidantes and disciplinarians to students, learned their placement for the next year from the Office of Residence Life & Housing.
Whereas RAs are placed in all dorms, SAs, which are fairly unique to Emory University, are assigned only to first-year dorms. The goal of the SA position is to provide new students with someone closer to their first-year experience for guidance and support, without acting as much on the disciplinary responsibilities of an RA. Ideally, the SA position should prepare interested sophomores to perform the greater responsibilities of an RA. However, unlike RAs, SAs are unpaid and do not receive free housing.
We at the Wheel believe the SA position should be compensated, as the current situation takes advantage of students’ interest in being RAs to get students to work without compensation. The motivations for being an RA can be anything from a need for housing to an interest in student leadership and to community involvement, but the fact remains that many students desire to fill the position. For many students, being an SA offers an opportunity to develop their skills and prove themselves worthy candidates for an RA position. Because of this, Residence Life is able to employ, on an essentially voluntary basis, students without any compensation whatsoever.
What exacerbates this situation is that there does not seem to be any clear correlation between an SA’s performance and their selection for an RA position. SAs frequently are not selected as RAs, while applicants with no experience as an SA are selected for RA. We understand that SAs cannot be promised an RA position, which helps ensure the quality of those selected to be RAs. But because SAs are not guaranteed RA positions and could ultimately spend one year of their time at Emory in a freshman hall without the assurance of a year of free housing, SAs should be compensated for the time and effort. We do not necessarily propose that SAs receive free housing, but we encourage Residence Life to critically consider their resources and provide some kind of compensation.
Additionally, when decisions are made about who will and won’t be selected as RA, resident response to their SAs is vital but mostly left out of consideration. To that end, we propose that Residence Life implement a system for residents to easily provide feedback on their SAs and RAs. Though the means currently exist to provide feedback, the channels may not be known to students. Therefore, there should be a marketed online form or other feedback mechanism so that Residence Life can have more information about applicants at their disposal so as to better select RAs.
While we think Emory’s RA and SA systems are unique and beneficial to Emory’s campus and mission as a residential university, we hope that Residence Life, as well as all SAs and RAs, will continue to work hard to provide students with environments conductive to students’ lives and development.
The above staff editorial represents the majority opinion of the Wheel’s editorial board.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
You don’t get paid to volunteer. The SA position is a volunteer position. There are almost 2-3 times more applicants than positions, which implies that these volunteer positions are in high demand. There are very few programming requirements for the SA position and they benefit by having the privilege to live in a first-year hall.