Residence Life: Compensation Comparison and Job Expectations

Residence Life: Compensation Comparison and Job Expectations

By: Katie Epps

                                                          RA Staff 2015-2016 during Fall training.

Any student who has lived on campus at Frostburg State University has had an interaction with a Resident Assistant. Though they know of their existence, most students do not know what the typical RA does in their job.

According to the RA Application from the 2012 to 2013 school year, the duties of an RA are extensive. These include attending weekly staff meetings, weekly duty nights, being “readily available in the hall” even when not on duty, staying late for closing the halls during breaks, and many more.

Perhaps the main demand made of an RA is duty shifts. Each RA is required to have a weekly duty shift. These occur on weeknights (Sunday through Thursday nights) and are scheduled from 8:00 PM until 12:00 AM.

RAs are also required to have weekend duty shifts. During these shifts, an RA is on duty from 8:00 PM Friday night until 8:00 PM Sunday night. RAs can leave the building for a total of four hours on Saturday and Sunday, but must otherwise be in the building to assist residents. From 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM on Friday and Saturday nights, the RA on duty must be in the office.

With all the requirements, the job can be quite demanding. In addition to all of this, RAs must be good students at FSU, carrying a minimum of 12 credits per semester and a base cumulative GPA of 2.5 for the length of their employment.

Because of this, RAs are expected not to hold any executive positions in any other organization or take another job that could take more than 10 hours of their week.

For the 2015 to 2016 school year, resident assistants are being compensated with free room and board and a free meal plan. For many students, these comped fees can be the difference between being able to afford college and dropping out. But is it enough?

For ex-RA Alexa Bashaw, it seems to be lacking. Bashaw was an RA for two years, her first in Cumberland Hall and her second in Frost. She says that RAs “could be compensated more for weekend duty.”

Donovan Meadows, another ex-Resident Assistant, agrees with this sentiment, but for a different reason. He says that the compensation stayed the same, but the responsibilities grew as the year went on.

“You get offered room and board at the beginning of the year for one job, and by the end of the year it’s a completely different and more difficult job with the same reward,” says Meadows.

According to Sean McNalley, the Associate Director of Residence Life, the compensation package is not likely to change any time soon. He says that the most likely scenario would occur if there were to be retention issues that could be resolved with a larger compensation package.

Ultimately, according to McNalley, the residence life office simply does not have the budget to further compensate the RAs. If the package were to include not only room and board, but a stipend as well, it may mean that residence life can no longer provide a meal plan.

Director of Residence Life Dana Severance had a similar take on the situation. He thinks that if a stipend were to be provided to the RAs, it would mean the loss of a meal plan.

“Ask […] what is actually of more value?” he said. “Would you rather have the money for the meal plan? And you would be paid over time for that. Or we can provide you with a meal plan, and if you don’t finish [the job] you don’t get the rest of that meal plan.”

Severance and McNalley agree that the compensation could improve retention rates if it ever becomes a problem for the residence life office. Both mentioned that it would likely be the first thing to be revisited.

Brian Medina, the Area Coordinator for Residence Life, thinks the compensation is fair the way it is currently. He thinks the “work is intrinsic.” He also adds that the staff appreciation are significant benefits.

Things like the RA banquet at the end of the year, the staff member of the month at department meetings, and recognition for jobs well done should be enough along with the room and board package, according to Medina.

The math for the weekend duty compensation that Bashaw suggested is relatively simple. There are nine buildings on campus, each with one RA in charge for the weekend. The time that an RA is on duty total to 48 hours. If RLO were to pay each on duty RA $8 an hour, subtracting the eight hours they are allowed to be gone, it comes out to $320 per RA. Multiply that by the nine buildings and twelve weeks of the semester, and the total budget that RLO would have to allot would come out to $34,560.

When McNalley was asked about this, he says that is the main reason that RAs cannot be compensated: because "the money is simply not there."

At other schools, the RAs receive, generally, their room and board charges covered. However, they are often more than what the costs are here at FSU. The graph below shows how FSU Resident Assistant compensation package stacks up against peer universities listed on the Frostburg website.

All prices are taken directly from the websites of each university and averaged together to get the total package. Monetary values are determined by how much the room and board fees are, how much the meal plan costs, and how much the stipend is if it is included.

                                              Key: R/B=Room and board, MP=Meal Plan, S=Stipend

The general consensus of RAs at Frostburg is that compensation is lacking in one way or another, while the professional staff believe it to be fair. This inconsistency is interesting at the least, and potentially damaging at most. It would seem that Severance and McNalley are correct: most peer universities do not pay a stipend on top of room and board fees, but nearly all are worth more than the FSU room and board charges.