By: Helana Mulder | October 30, 2018
By: Helana Mulder, reporter
With the start of a new school year came new changes to the HA position at Redeemer. Recently, Student Life revamped this job in order to work from a standpoint of trust: an approach that is not necessarily new but is applied differently this year.
Instead of having a second year HA live among other second years, the job has been directed to third and fourth years on campus. This change came about for several reasons, but mostly due to the fact that it is hard for a second year HA to separate their roles as a friend, and as a leader. Student Life decided to make the position easier on the HA and on the people in the dorms.
Hennie Schoon, the Dean of Students here at Redeemer, discussed the position and was able to provide some information on what it means to be an HA. Schoon says that it would be ideal if, in the future, former RAs would continue their relationships with first years by being HAs in their third or fourth year.
Second year is a time of asking many questions and discovering many answers. It’s the year where you make key and influential decisions about your faith, career, and friendships. Because of this, having someone that the second years can look up to is very important.
Along with a standpoint of trust, Schoon states that the role of the HA is used to help the second years grow from an internal perspective. “We want the responsibility to come from inside rather than from an outside source,” Schoon says about the subject. Learning to take the residence life rules seriously can only truly happen when it comes from the inside, which is something that the new HA position is trying to achieve.
Gabriella Meleca, the Resident Director in charge of the HAs this year was also able to discuss the change in position for this year and how these changes were made in order to make the HA role more effective. The modifications “give second years their independence, but also makes it easier to have authority in place. It isn’t your peer who is addressing policy concerns,” Meleca says.
So far, the HA position has been making Residence Life easier for both second years and HAs alike, and we hope that it will continue to improve in the future.