Resident Assistant hiring process finished for fall semester; Average number of RAs return
Central Michigan University's 22 residence halls are preparing to meet their new staff members.
Assistant Director of Residence Life Kim Voisin said 69 new staff members have been hired to fill current resident assistant and multicultural adviser positions that will be available next fall.
Though the office of Residence Life does not have a sophisticated software system to track the actual numbers, Voisin estimates between 55 and 60 percent of RAs and MAs return to their position for the following school year.
"It varies from year to year," she said. "Some years we end up hiring 60 people, some years we hire 80."
CMU has 146 RA positions and 22 MA positions each year.
Voisin said each RA who chooses to leave their position does so for his or her own personal reason.
"It's actually pretty evenly spread," she said. "Almost half of the people that don't come back are graduating. Some leave to student teach, some leave because they have an internship and the other half, they want to live off campus."
White Lake senior Kevin Birkholz is part of that percentage of RAs who leave to experience personal freedom.
Birkholz, who has worked as an RA in Trout Hall for the past five semesters, will leave his position in May. He said although he enjoys working as an RA, he has sacrificed a lot of his freedom to do so.
"After two and a half years," he said, "I'm ready to get some of those freedoms back."
Birkholz said he has another semester of classes left before he leaves to student teach. He plans on moving into an apartment off campus with three other students for his last semester at CMU. The three students he plans to live with will be either graduating in December or moving away from Mount Pleasant to student teach.
Voisin said RAs usually hold their positions for about two years.
"We have staff members that stay for three years, and once in awhile, for four years," she said. "There's a good number of them that after one year, they're satisfied, and want to move on."
CMU alumnus Drew Proctor said he kept his position as an RA in Robinson Hall for two years until he graduated in 2007.
"I liked the job," he said. "I enjoyed helping people when I could, I enjoyed working with my fellow RAs, and free room and board wasn't a bad deal either."
Voisin said there are also students who do not leave their RA position by choice.
"There are a handful of students, several every year, that are not invited back or are terminated," she said. "Staff members ... are terminated generally because they have violated one of our policies or expectations."
Voisin said most of the time, RAs don't leave mid-year.
When they do, she said, they are replaced, and the new RA is given training. Residence Life usually requires between six and 15 new hires at the beginning of the spring semester.
Voisin said the new hires are replacing an RA that is either graduating, leaving for an internship or student teaching position, or is terminated or asked to leave.
