The Resident Assistant’s Bulletin Board plays an important part in the success of your residency.  The board says a lot about you, your range of information and your organizational skills.  Yet, this board is primarily for the benefit of your residents.  It should never be self-serving. It should always be interesting and loaded with important information.

If your bulletin board fulfills its purpose, it will be a place where residents meet to catch up on events, share a laugh or make plans to get together.  That is exactly what you want your board to be.

These goals do not happen by accident.  You will be sending a fair amount of time, clipping, creating and posting interesting and relevant topics that will benefit the residents.  Remember, the purpose of the RA’s bulletin board is to engage the residents.  Give them something in common to attend, participate in or discuss.  Good things will happen.

Here are a few popular postings for Resident Assistant Bulletin Boards:

•    Things To See
•    Things To Do
•    Health News
•    Drug Awareness
•    Where Are You From?  – Post a map and encourage residents to label their hometown
•    Where Have Your Been? – Post a map and ask residents to mark places they have visited
•    Cultural Awareness events
•    News of the day – post the days leading new story
•    Peer Pressure topics
•    Movie Reviews

This bulletin board should be different, interesting, contain important contact and emergency contact information.  If the RA gets it right, residents will congregate here, even if it is to agree to disagree.  Don’t be afraid to post controversial news reports.  Get residents communicating with each other and with you.  It is healthy. It is beneficial and it adds character to your residency.

Keep your bulletin board from being repetitious.  Vary the format.  Encourage diversity.  Encourage residents to make suggestions, postings and contributions.  They just may find that they have more in common than originally realized.

Most institutions require RA’s to change their bulletin boards once a month.  Successful RA’s are more aggressive and strive for change every two weeks.  As a Resident Assistant, you are a friend, a leader, a disciplinarian, a mediator, a programmer and peer counselor.  Your bulletin board must never compromise any of these important roles that you bear.  Use humor, not sarcasm, be accurate with the information and be culturally sensitive.  Your bulletin board is an extension of yourself, and you are the person residents go to when in trouble.

As a resident assistant, you will be faced with many challenges.  Your ability to listen, communicate and work out positive solutions will have a direct bearing on the success of your residence and community.  While the institution will provide guidelines for a number of conditions, the resident assistant will be responsible for the in-the-field, on-the spot resolutions that will definitely occur between residents.  Your ability tom act under this pressure will define your success.

Being a resident assistant will challenge your organizational skills and your people skills.  After studying the institutional guidelines, the RA should begin to develop a strategy to bring the residents together.

Some RA’s have posted a geographic map and requested residents to identify their geographic origins.  Other RA’s have developed a series of questions that encourage residents to participate in discussions.  Often the questions are drawn from a hat and read by random residents.  Getting the residents to engage issues and each other is a positive step for the future.

The use of the Resident Assistant’s bulletin board is an effective tool in creating passive awareness.  Identify upcoming dates such as cultural awareness events.  Encourage recognition of these dates and customs.  If residents want to celebrate February as Black History Month or March as National Women’s History Month, encourage your residents to respect these occasions.

RA’s should feel free to consult multicultural affairs professionals, which most institutions retain, to encourage diversity.  These activities may well set your residency apart from others and bring your group together harmoniously.

Resident Assistants must always be aware of institutional activities and regard these activities as opportunities for residents to bond in a constructive environment.  You might be surprised how these activities help to create bonds and common purposes.

Let’s face it.  It is an Internet world out there, both in and out of your residence hall.  Your residents are not exempted.  You must have a strong online presence.  You can set aside a specific resident-only RA e-mail address.  Be sure to check correspondence regularly and answer every note, even if to say that you will be in touch later.

You might also use the Internet to establish links with other RA’s.  You can share ideas, share successes, discuss issues and just about everything else.  Your comrades are out there are probably looking for support just like you.

As a Resident Assistant, you have the guidelines, you know your residents and the lay of the land, but you cannot possibly imagine every situation that will occur.  Don’t be afraid to say you need time to consider problems.  Don’t be afraid to seek assistance from more experienced RA’s.  Be balanced, be true to the institutional guidelines and be a good listener.  The answers will come.  Do your best to treat every resident with equal respect and you will gain respect in return.