Thinking about being an ARD?

After considering the decision for the past two years, Plymouth State University's Residential Life administration recently chose to remove the Assistant Residential Director (ARD) position from the Residential life staff.

According to Jeff Furlone, the Assistant Director of Residential Life, there is no longer a need for the position within the current Residential Life staff system. The position was originally created to support the Residential Director (RD) in an administrative role. These duties included serving on hall council, running desk operations, planning programming and community events and file work orders.

Since the position was created, the RD and CA positions have taken on more responsibility and students' need for the ARD position has diminished, "The work order system used to be paper. Now that it's electronic, there is more training involved and the RD has taken over that responsibility," Furlone said. Also, residence halls no longer have hall council and the job of planning community events has transitioned to the Community Advisors (CA).

Furlone argues that students no longer need an ARD in an administrative level as much as they need good CAs that work with students directly, "We were taking good CAs and turning them into ARDs - it's not a good use of staff members," he said.

Currently, there are no plans to hire more CAs to take over the remaining duties the ARD was responsible for, "Recruitment is hard," Furlone said, "The budget will be put into student staff training." Furlone estimates that about $40,000 will be transitioned from ARD stipends and room costs into student staff training.

Previously, the ARD position served as an opportunity such as an internship, in the sense that it paves the way for students who wish to become involved in Residential Life staff at PSU or elsewhere after graduation, in a RD or other administrative position. Furlone suspects that removing the ARD position will not diminish students' chances to continue in the field, as he plans to give CAs all the opportunities they wish for experience if they ask for it.

The current ARDs that are returning next semester will have the opportunity to be either a CA or Apartment Community Advisor (ACA).