On Friday November 6, 2020, SUNY Broome Student Village Resident Assistants (Christina Thompson, Justin Nyantakyi, Moses Griffith, Bre’Anna Mcqueen, Hayley Richardson, and Kamilah Grosso) and Residence Directors (Pam Alvarez, and Alex Donkor) attended “A Whole New World”; SUNY Brockport’s 38th Annual RA Conference. The conference was held via Zoom this year due to COVID-19 regulations.
There were 3 sessions filled with many different presentations. Some of the presentation topics included:
- Passive Programming
- Supporting Queer Residents
- Connecting with Residents
RAs Bre’Anna and Moses chose to go to the Passive Programming session. During the session Moses learned to “adjust the kind of programming I do to target identifiable groups within the residence hall.” RA Hayley attended the Supporting Queer Residents session where she learned about the “Queer Closet”. Hayley intends to do more research on this topic and hopefully implement this in the Student Village. RA Kamilah attended the Connecting with Residents program. Kamilah learned about COVID friendly programming ideas that help connect with residents. RAs Christina and Justin also attended sessions however they were also given the opportunity to present their own presentation.
RAs Christina and Justin along with RDs Pam and Alex spent the week before the conference preparing their presentation. They decided to use this opportunity to highlight the Student Village’s new initiatives put in place in order to “bring people together to spread diversity and inclusivity” in “The Brand New Virtual World”. The Bit of Me and Hot Topic series, along with Diversity Calendar Themes, and Social Media were highlighted in the presentation. The Bit of Me series “highlight members of the community who can speak on or identify with the diversity theme or topic for each month.” The Hot Topic series is “a series of current issues. Every biweekly, we invite a guest to come in for a discussion.” In the beginning of this semester RD Pam and Alex made a Diversity Calendar. The RAs programming for each month would focus on that month’s theme/topic. Due to the new changes that needed to be made due to COVID, the Housing Team has heavily relied on social media to connect with residents. Currently the Student Village can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. The group was happy with the turnout and hoped everyone walked away from the presentation with some valuable new information.
The Housing Team is thankful for having the opportunity to attend this year’s conference, and thanks SUNY Brockport for continuing this conference even though it had to be virtual.
Tags: Housing
