Closing Time, Part I
By: Dorm Life
Tags: Student Affairs, College, Higher Education

For many students, the end to a very long semester is coming to a close, but Res Life everywhere still has a ways to go.

It’s a worthy debate among RAs and RDs everywhere which is worse — opening or closing?

There may be slightly more to do when opening your buildings, but there is the benefit of having more energy (at least what energy hasn’t been sucked away from training). I always preferred closing, mainly because across the board, the expectations were far lower than they were for opening. Everyone understands that no one wants to be doing this anymore, and there’s the general feeling among everyone that it’s just a matter of getting through it all. There are some caveats.

I remember one year when I oversaw an apartment complex with another hall director. Despite having multiple buildings spread out over our complex to accommodate over 1,000 students, we had over 20 student staff members to get the job done in a day. It all seemed simple enough. It was only after all the staff members were dismissed and we reported to our supervisor that we noticed the miscommunication between their directions/expectations and our execution. The answer was simple — the two hall directors were responsible for going into every room in the complex to do the check our supervisor wanted. An hour of work for our staff turned into the entire afternoon and a good portion of the evening for two professional staff members. I’m not mad. I’m actually laughing. Granted that’s one example, but still one of many that are out there of the volatility of such an intricate process, especially when the motivation of everyone involved is at an all-time low.

Basically, during closing, res life oversees the move-out process for every student in the dorms. A staff isn’t considered done until every resident has checked out, every room is inspected, and all “closing items” are completed. Those items could include key audits, bulletin boards torn down, common areas cleaned, end-of-semester evaluations, etc. Things vary according to how much the housing operations staff has to do vs. the res life staff and get more intricate when having to manage changes in assignments such as students changing rooms for the following semester or those graduating in December and thus moving out entirely. It’s a whole big thing. What can make or break the process — the residents.

Every room change request, extension request, quiet hours violation, or unclean room puts additional strain on res life, mostly the RAs. We don’t go home until you go home; moreover, we don’t go home until you do everything you have to do before you go home. So, to the residents out there — I know looking at a flyer concerning 24-hour quiet hours seems dumb, or reading through the move out process seems tedious, but as someone who has never had a smooth December closing due to at least a handful of residents not following an email bullet point or an instruction given at the last hall meeting, I’m begging you to take a little extra time to do so. If that’s not serving the common man, I don’t know what is.

And all of this is just scratching the surface. December closing is a breeze compared to end-of-the-year closing (coming in Part II).