Community Assistants Join RAs in Guinan Leadership

This year, Guinan Residence Hall instituted the new position of Community Assistants, also known as CAs. The residence hall has a plethora of leadership positions to help students, ranging from Resident Assistant, Area RA to CA.  The CAs are in charge of organizing large-scale community-wide events. Every Wednesday at 10 p.m. in Guinan, the CAs host and organize Wonderful Wednesday. At this event, free food is given out to residents and their guests, and it is a time for the student body to hang out and bond in the lobby. Occasionally, at Wonderful Wednesday there will be a guest speaker or prizes will be given out.

In addition to Wonderful Wednesdays, the CAs help organize one community wide event each month. Marquis Gatewood, the Director of Residence Life, encourages the CAs to plan events that can help the student body bond and start new traditions.

“I don’t know if everyone is familiar, but one of the traditional programs that we are starting to build is Pajama Jam,” Gatewood said. “It is exclusively for freshman and they [the CAs] created it. It was right after the freshman move in on Wednesday; we did a large scale first floor meeting and then we did the Pajama Jam. It was huge with a lot of fun, games, and karaoke. It was a celebration of being residents here at St. Thomas. I think that that momentum has carried us especially in the last Wonderful Wednesdays.”

The CAs were selected through a two-fold interview process last spring. They  participated in the leadership interview process in which CAs, RAs and orientation leaders were selected. The potential CAs went through group and personal interviews. After they were selected in April, the CAs had to go through training and orientation over the summer before school started. Marwa Awad, a current CA and UST sophomore, greatly enjoyed the orientation process and meeting new people.

“We came here about 10 days before school started and we had training every day,” Awad said. “We went through a bunch of different training. We met with Chief Tate, we got CPR certified, and we bonded a lot with other CAs and RAs.”

Even though the CAs do a lot of hard work for the community and around campus, there are many perks that come with the job. The CAs get a double-room scholarship, meaning that their rent for living in a double-room, a room shared with a roommate, is paid for. Also, the CAs are required to work six hours a week at the Guinan front desk, but they get paid for each additional hour they work.

“I really like being a CA,” Awad said. “I have so much fun. I like routine and we have a fun group of people. I’m lucky because a lot of people don’t like their jobs, but I feel like we have a lot of fun here.”

The CAs are helpful to the community and the RAs. Senior Priya Bhalla, a senior, was an RA last year, and this year she is an area RA in charge of the third floor. Since the addition of the CA position she has noticed a positive difference.

“The CAs are a phenomenal addition to staff,” Bhalla said. “CAs help plan area wide events and Wonderful Wednesdays. Because their position gives them more exposure to what the residents like and dislike, they are the perfect people to plan events that are so large scale. The CAs this year have already put together great programs. The CAs creativity and idea planning have also helped the reslife community grow. During our meetings, we come up with very creative, new and original plans and it makes it easier for me as an ARA to help them [the CAs] implement the ideas.”

Gatewood noticed a need for CAs when the position of Sophomore Assistant (SA) started to die out. The SA position was becoming less popular because there was not any type of financial incentive, and it was basically training to be a RA. Gatewood began asking the SAs why the position was dying out, and he found out what types of positions the students on reslife wanted.

“Students wanted the opportunity and programming experience, but for the amount of work they put in, I think it is fair that they assumed there would be some type of financial benefit to it,” Gatewood said. “The position of CA also allows for more flexibility with schedules so that students busy with athletics and extracurricular activities can still have time to have a leadership position in the residence halls.”

The newly founded CA position is allowing the residence life community to grow and helping students adapt to the challenges of college all around campus.

“Our residents are going to feel a difference here and we have an amazing on campus community,” Gatewood said. “It is small, but it is amazing and it is growing. I think you are going to see some unique programs from us through the CAs and a restored energy in what it means to be on campus and the benefits that come with that.”