ACU Residence Life recently completed the hiring process for next year’s resident assistants and assistant directors. The team had an especially hard time choosing new staff members from a pool of about 170 applicants, and ended up turning away around 100 candidates.
John Delony, assistant dean for Residence Life and Education, said there is a positive trend in students wanting to be a part of Residence Life leadership, shown in the increase of applicants, up from last year’s 140 applications.
“It was just an incredible applicant pool, and there was really some agony on our end trying to decide. It’s the worst best problem you can have,” Delony said.
Angela Neal, assistant director of Residence Life, attributes the increase in job applicants to a shift in Residence Life’s focus on residents and student workers.
“The people who are applying and the people who are being brought on are being fulfilled in the position as opposed to just trying to get through,” Neal said. “I think we’ve put more of an emphasis on really taking care of the individuals who are on our staff, so that they can better take care of the residents that are in the hall. We’ve made it a top priority.”
Delony said he understands students today are applying for jobs for various reasons, despite his bias toward working with Residence Life.
“I would love Residence Life to claim all the glory and say that we’re the greatest department on campus to work for, and I do think that we’ve got a significant culture shift where students are enjoying being in the residence hall,” Delony said. “On the other hand, ACU is becoming more expensive. You can’t throw that out either, that free housing is free housing, so that’s definitely a perk.”
While next year’s RAs and ADs all have been hired, Delony and Neal say they continue to receive applications for desk manager positions, which almost always need to be filled.
“We continue to have a significant number of desk manager positions in each of the residence halls,” Delony said. “What we will do is continue to look for ways to utilize the desk managers, they can truly be a resource for the students.”
Job openings in Residence Life can be found in the ACU classifieds with other on-campus jobs as they become available.
