A glimpse of my life as an RD

The 08-09 school year is about to come to a close. It's always amazing to me to see how quickly the year flies by! This year is no exception! I am on the verge of completing my 9th year as a Resident Director! It's hard to believe that I've been here that long! Our plan is to stay as long as the Lord keeps us here, taking it one year at a time. We will be here for at least one more year and will continue to seek God's direction for the future.

Next year at Simpson will look a bit different, holding a whole new host of challenges and opportunities. We are shifting our program and changing it to meet the needs of only having 3 professional staff running the program in Residence Life. I will be taking on a new title (Residence Life Coordinator) and assuming new duties (primarily heading up the daunting area of discipline - among other things). We will also have Student RD's next year (changing their titles from Lead RA's)! It's definitely going to look a little different around here.

I have mixed feelings about the changes, but am trying to make the best of what I anticipate will be a challenging year. I'm sure that I will learn a great deal and will gain additional skills that will be helpful down the road. I like the idea of a new challenge and I'm hoping and praying for the best.

Below is a photo of this year's RA and Lead RA team. This year we more than doubled the number of students that we hire for these roles. We had 5 Lead RA's (an entirely new position this year) and 6 RA's per dorm (we previously had only 3). So we jumped from having 15 -18 RA's to having 35 students impacting our campus and influencing their floors. It was a learning curve, but in the end was a great success, in my opinion. :) It's going to be hard to say goodbye to this group!We have hired our team for next year and have concluded the spring training these student leaders. Below we are gathered at our President's home (Dr. McKinney) for a New RA Reception. We anticipate great things from this group of students and are exited to work with them next year.