Residence Life is undergoing multiple changes this semester including organizational shifts and an early round of Senior Resident Advisor applications.

Shannon Kaczmarek, dean of community and wellness, said the promotions happened due to student life changes.

“Student life has gone through some structural changes and oriental changes so back in December, I took on the Dean of Community Living and Wellness role,” Kaczmarek said. “On June 1, Zach and Emily took on director roles; Two different roles but they are co-directing the department now.”

Emily Berry and Zach Snyder are co-directors of ResLife serving under separate titles. Snyder is the director of staff development and Berry is the director of operations.

Both Snyder and Berry worked last year as assistant directors of the department and have served the university for multiple years prior.

Berry described her responsibilities as behind-the-scenes work.

“I run a lot of the administrative processes like hiring and curriculum development and some of the other like processes and procedures that goes into resident life,” Berry said.

Snyder said his position is connected to training staff on how ResLife relates to students, as well as relationships with other departments.

“It has a lot to do with things around training and how we want to go about the ways we want to relate with students,” Snyder said.

SRA applications opened on Monday; This is the second year ResLife is opening them early.

The application process will now start in the fall semester instead of the spring to have the SRA’s more involved in the ResLife required class and hiring process of Resident Assistants.

“The role is intended to be an additional support to the RAs and somebody who is helping with some of the administrative things for the building,” Kaczmarek said.

Applications for the SRA position are due on Sep. 23.

With this change and as the university continues to grow, ResLife looks forward to housing more students in co-ed ways.

“We are currently exploring what it looks like to have more of our halls be split gender,” Snyder said. “We are having to be creative as we look forward to next year as we house this larger class when we are already very full.”

Sikes hall was recently announced to undergo renovations for the 2023-24 school year. Berry said she also wants to include sophomores in this plan.

“We are really promoting a community and freshman village where we have our split gender housing and we want our students to have the similar experience on the sophomore level.”