Resident advisors attend conference at UWF
Kerri Stinson
Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: News
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Resident advisors Jeanine Rodino, Jasmaine Malcolm, Sarah Sussman, Adam Urbanski, Chris Rigolini, Ivo Hristov, Tonda Wooten and Dani Carr, Christine Simone and Sam Mattell attended the seminar and were joined by Community Living Coordinators Kade Ross and Greg Bowers.
Resident advisors from several schools were selected to present a variety of conference sessions that would both interest the resident advisors and help them to develop professionally.
Simone and Mattell presented "Season Two: The Second-Year Experience," which explained FSC's SYE program. During the session, Simone and Mattell discussed some of the unique aspects of a second-year living learning community and shared ideas for large-scale programming.
Malcolm shared a program that she originally offered to her residents in Greek Village. "Suite Storm" was a scavenger hunt through the Publix suites at FSC, but was revamped to stretch across the UWF campus at FRAS.
Urbanski facilitated an open forum that discussed various topics dealing with drug use ranging from caffeine addiction to the use of illegal substances.
Carr and Wooten presented their program, "Murder Mystery" where participants enjoyed snacks while role-playing a murder mystery program that Carr originally offered to the residents of JR and Spivey last semester.
Themes for the sessions included diversity, community building, personal development, conflict management, programming and living-learning communities.
"One program was all about breaking the traditional approach to doing programs," Malcolm said. "It was about thinking outside the box. One of the activities that I learned from that session was how to make cupcakes in the microwave."
One other key aspect of the seminar was the school spirit and energy that each of the 10-15 schools brought to the conference. A series of roll call skits started off the conference. Fitting with this year's FRAS theme, each school chose a television show to emulate. Malcolm rewrote the words to the Gilligan's Island theme song and the FSC delegates played the roles of the show's characters.
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University won the skit competition for its rendition of "America's Next Top Model."
After a long day of conference sessions, all of the RAs from the different schools came together for a banquet and presentation from keynote speaker Harlan Cohen, author of the popular book "The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College."
Cohen shared personal stories about his time as a college student and the effect that his resident advisors had on his life, while also providing general tips about life in a humorous manner. Cohen moved about the audience interacting with the RAs and allowing several attendees to share stories of their own.
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