Being a Resident Assistant (RA) is all-consuming. For RAs, our home and workplace are the same.

So when I first accepted my offer to be an RA, I knew it would be difficult, but I was stoked to be working in a space that I thought would be supportive. It was not long before I realized that the Residential and Student Services Program, the department I so confidently looked up to, was not actually being transparent with its student staff.

The first red flag was when I realized I was working a lot more than the roughly 19 hours per week outlined in my job contract. Between weekly staff meetings on Tuesday nights, being on duty two or three times a week, required one-on-one conversations with each of my more than 60 individual residents and planning monthly community events, I was easily working much more than 20 hours per week. Additionally, there were always unexpected incidents that would come up and add to that time.

During staff training, we were taught that “you are students first,” and we were told to take care of ourselves before our jobs. This sounded great on paper and I really felt like RSSP had an interest in my well-being. When the job actually started, however, I quickly began to question this. How can I be a student first, let alone a person first, when I am constantly expected to be at the beck and call of more than 60 residents? How is the department keeping RAs’ best interests in mind when, for example, we are expected take over the Security Monitor job each time a Security Monitor doesn’t show up for a shift? It started to seem like every issue within the residence halls became another responsibility for RAs that was not originally listed in the job contracts we signed.

Not only did the department continue to overwork RAs, they also were not being transparent with us. When we signed our job contracts, we were given both our fall and summer move-out dates. After those move-out dates, we expected to be free and on our own personal time. In the middle of fall semester, however, RSSP changed the summer move-out date, extending our time as RAs. This was never part of the contract we originally signed and many of us had already arranged travel plans that would interfere with this new move-out date. Frustrated at the miscommunication on behalf of RSSP, many RAs addressed this. The department responded by saying we do not have to sign the new contracts. Many of us assumed, however, that if we did not agree to this new move-out date and contract, we would be out of a job and without housing. Our time was clearly not being respected or taken into consideration when RSSP decided to change the move-out date.

In addition to not respecting our time, our health was not being respected. RAs receive a swipe-based meal plan which means we can swipe in three times per day, but only at dining halls. The Golden Bear Cafe, Pat Brown’s, etc. take points — our plan comes with only a small number of points — but our meal plans could not swipe there. I was an RA in Unit 3 last year, and Cafe 3 does not open for breakfast. Having 8 a.m. classes meant that I would skip breakfast every day because I did not have enough points to use my meal plan to get food at the GBC, Bear Market, or any other point-based location. This is not okay. Being a student and an RA is already difficult, but not getting enough food is unacceptable. For lunch, I would often be on campus because I had back-to-back classes. Most people would go to Ramona’s or Pat Brown’s to get food during their breaks, but I could not use my meal plan for lunch either since there was simply no time to go back to Unit 3 or up to Foothill. This job became not just mentally taxing, but physically taxing, as well.

The job became more difficult when I realized a lot of the issues that came up on my floor were not issues that RAs were adequately trained to deal with. Sexual assault in the residence halls is very real, yet our training did not emphasize how prominent it is. In our two-week training during the summer of 2014, sexual assault training was presented as just one more training session to cross off our list. It did not equip me with the tools to talk to survivors, provide them with resources or point them to the right people to talk to. Specifically, it did not equip me with the tools to answer very real questions. How do I repair our floor now that the trust is broken? How do we make survivors feel comfortable in this space? How do we talk about this and still maintain survivor confidentiality? How should we talk about this issue without triggering residents? These questions were very real in my mind and so important in the process of healing our floor. Unfortunately, our training gave no insight into how to answer these or how to actually deal with this very prominent issue.

I do not regret being an RA. It was one of the most positive and supportive spaces for me at UC Berkeley, but I say this only because of my residents and the student staff around me. I did not feel supported by the department. This is not an attack on the department, but rather a reflection on my experience and a call for the department to take action. I do not speak for all RAs, but I do speak for my individual experiences and feelings in this process. I hope to see RSSP take strides to make student staff feel more supported, healthy and equipped in this role.

Aanchal Chugh is a current ASUC senator, a former RA and a founder of Womxn Empowerment Club.

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