The Vaughn Student Lounge is located on the 3rd floor of the Reng Student Union, outside of the Auditorium. Volunteers will be posted to help provide decorations. While it is not necessary to have the entire delegation go through Registration, we do need at least one representative from each school and anyone presenting a program.
As RA's, we all know that we have those few residents who may keep to themselves or stay quiet. Sometimes, that may just be their personality. But other times, it may be a concern. We always want our residents to feel welcome in their new home, but what if they feel lonely and isolated? In this session, we'll talk about how to help these residents and how to make their new home feel more like a welcoming place.
Do awkward situations with your residents make you wish you had a compass? Need help navigating awkward territory on your floor? Well, come to the Mapping AWKWARD Territory Session, to learn how to find your way in these difficult situations!
Branding 101. Do you know what your brand is? Do you know the importance of maintaining a positive brand? Having a positive brand can take you a long way and give you access to endless opportunities.This presentation will focus on the essentials of branding and help you to identify what your brand is, ways to further develop your brand, and how to maintain a positive brand in the eyes of others.
Assistants will dive into their life, define their dreams, ideals, and most important, passions. And portray them in a dream board for them to never forget who they are and who they want to be. Inspiration will be present on this breakout session during its three stages: self-awareness (who we were, and who we are), success (who we want to be), and set a road to a goal-achieving future.
Have you ever helped residents compromise over a roommate conflict, acknowledged a coworker when they’ve done something great, or supported yourself when you’ve needed it? Guess what? You’re an advocate! However, being an advocate comes with its challenges – we all have implicit biases to overcome, facilities and housing departments can get involved, and sometimes it’s hard to ask for help. In this session, learn from RAs who have experience with advocating in tough situations how you can improve your residents’ college experiences (and your own) by becoming a natural advocate!
Thank you and you and you. Being an RA can be a thankless job at times, which is why we are taking this session to recognizing you and your peers accomplishments. Learn why recognition is so important and how we can get better at it!
Let’s forget about stereotypes and be proud of your real self. In this session you will be able to see how, through organizing a fashion show, you can enhance the resident’s self-esteem, give them the opportunity to throw away their fears and also help a social cause.
The attendees will guide the discussion which can range from how to work in Student Affairs to how to work with a frustrating supervisor. This will be a safe space for attendees to explore what is on their mind and receive solid support and information on how to take the next steps on what needs their attention. Beth has been a senior housing officer for eight years, has held leadership positions in SWACUHO, and is happy discussing all the “tough stuff.”
Do you think our thoughts, mood and emotions affect our brains? Come and explore the fundamental science behind the human nervous system, and how the physical and chemical structure of the brain is affected by our everyday state of mind. You will experience a real-time electroencephalogram (EEC) reading of your brain, perceiving the different active areas concerning your thoughts and emotions. Finally, you will learn how our behavior is modified according to the actual state of the brain, as well as techniques of how to control your thoughts and emotions in order to act properly according to different situations.
See the light where the halls meet the RA’s it calls me, and we all know from where it comes... From Hades to Moana, from the funniest villain to the bravest princess, all leaders have special traits that makes them unique. With the help of your favorite Disney leaders we will learn how each advisors’ leadership has, creates a spell on us and turn it into the passion that drives us to become the best assistants.
Whether you know the rules or this millennial board game or not. You will be transported to the origins of this emblematic and iconic mental sport. In order to checkmate your problems, you need to know your pieces in-game and develop a successful strategy against the adversities on the battlefield. Learn basic tactics from the grandmaster chess players applied to the game of life and your communities.
International Students make up a big chunk of our housing population. So the question becomes, how can we best facilitate programs or even conversations with these international students? Well, let’s Go Global and discuss different ways and techniques we can use to maximize the involvement and engagement with our international residents!
All the hats you wear are connected like a spiderweb. They’re all intertwined. We are going to talk about time management skills that can help you manage the multiple hats you wear as an RA. We are also going to participate in an activity to demonstrate how helpful these skills can be throughout the school year. This presentation is geared towards first year RA’s to help gain more confidence in all of your new titles!
This panel has the directed aim of illustrating the typical issues that arise when two people start living together in the same room. Moreover, we intend to offer some alternatives to these problematics. The aforementioned will be enriched by the insights of experienced residence assistants, their anecdotes and advice in a dynamic yet organized fashion.
Do you experience burnout quickly? Do you have a hard time talking about mental health? Then this is the presentation for you! Come learn about how your role as an empathizer can impact your residents and your self-care routine.
The question we ask ourselves and of our RAs is what role do we play in that student's success? Our aim is to assist students in building job search resources, developing a solid network, and developing an effective search strategy that can help students prepare for their first interview. Students should be graduating with the skills necessary to find a desirable job but to also excel in that job market.
Do you think your decisions are the right ones? This resident assistant (RA) a-b-c workshop is inspired by the episode of the famous black mirror series “Bandersnatch” where the daily life of a young man is presented and all the decisions he must make and the way in which his future can be affected with each of them. Through this workshop we seek to highlight the importance of assertive decision making as well as the correct way to face a crisis situation in your work as a prefect.
A program over Business and Social Media etiquette. The program would highlight the do’s and don’ts that not only come with the RA job but future career ventures and how your social media presence and digital footprint can and will make or break you as a candidate.
Neighbors, Explorers, Scholars, and Trailblazers are the four components on what builds your NEST. Come and discuss what these components are and how you can implement it in your programming and decorations.
Are you involved in multiple organizations? Is being an RA one of the many priorities in your life? Learn how to handle being an RA and a full-time college student that is actively involved on your campus, while still being efficient and effective in all areas of life. Find the “why” behind everything you’re a part of and learn how to apply that in a way that will benefit you and those around you in everything you do.
Having issues with conflict, communication, collaboration between residents and co-workers? Crash Course RA offers an extensive look into various conflict styles of people and goes in depth about the love languages that showcase the importance of appreciating and recognizing the uniqueness of residents and co-workers.
Empower yourself so that you can empower your staff and residents to be the best versions of themselves! You will learn about current research surrounding women in leadership, women in the workforce, the confidence gap, and leadership self-efficacy specifically related to being a female student leader. You will leave with a heightened awareness regarding women in leadership, applicable information to how this applies to your life as an RA, and tangible takeaways of things to bring back to your community. The session will be a mix of traditional presentation, small group, and large group discussion. Anyone is welcome to attend!
There's a myth about how RA´s are always as cheerful as seen in movies. As far as it seems from truth, RA´s sometimes hold on to harsh feelings, too. We feel just as much as our residents do. If we seek help for our residents so we must seek help for ourselves.In this workshop we are going to break the paradigms and search for our mental health as an RA community.
With the help of the True Colors Personality Test, this presentation will outline the unique personalities you may see within your coworkers. This presentation will use characters from popular TV shows, such as “The Office”, to demonstrate how to work cohesively as a team. Through this presentation you will learn what the true colors test is, how it functions in the workplace, and how to apply what you learned within your staff teams.
Improv is a form of theatre where the performance is unscripted with little to no planning. The key to making this form of performance work is using active listening in a team or individual setting. As such, this workshop will use improv games and discussion to practice and learn active listening and collaborative skills. As an RA, our interactions with our staff and residents are the core of what we do. Being able to listen and adapt to new ideas or perspectives is vitally important. This will be an active and fun session for all involved!
During the last 5 years we have applied in our Student Residences a welfare model focused on 7 areas: social, spiritual, emotional, occupational, physical, environmental and intelectual, which was very successful and it has allowed us to create a vibrant and cohesive community in our school. However, we consider that it was necessary to renew ourselves for the new generations. What changes should we make to our model so that it will continue to be effective and valuable for our students? After 9 months of implementation, what have been the pros and cons? What was the change? And, above all, was it worth it? Geared toward full-time professionals.
Ever wonder why residents aren’t showing up to your programs? Are you using flyers to market? Searching for ways to increase program attendance? In this session we will discuss the power of social media and the effects it has on resident involvement in the community and around campus.
Resident Assistants hired in the middle of year face unique circumstances in adapting to the RA role that RAs hired in the fall don’t face. In this breakout session, RAs and professional staff will experience these challenges through a post-apocalyptic survival game. The activity will be followed by a discussion led by Diego Granados and Alex Isler, two mid-year hire RAs from UT Austin, on how to best support mid-year hires and how the strategies used in the game can be applied to best support new mid-year staff.
Student affairs is a tricky field, which may leave some people hungry. Do you have an interest in working in student affairs after graduation? Do you possibly want to secure a housing internship before graduating? Well, come find out what’s on the menu to E.A.T (Exposure, Adapt & Transform).
