Resident Adviser
A Resident Adviser (also spelled Advisor) or RA is a student charged with supervising students living in a set of rooms in a residence hall. RAs receive free housing to do this. RA duties include:
- sorting out Room Condition Reports
- enforcing Columbia policy
- mediating conflicts between residents
- being in charge of the vacuum cleaner
- creating floor and area-wide programs
Until 2007-2008, Columbia RA's had to be juniors or seniors. The Office of Residential Programs began considering freshmen to serve as RA's during their sophomore year for the first time in 2006-2007. Barnard ResLife had initiated the practice years in advance.
RA's at Columbia are a mixed bag. Some are awesome, others are highly questionable choices for the position. Some RA's have suggested that Residential Programs actually hires unqualified candidates with the reasoning that the position will "help them grow." The indescribably poor reasoning skills that go into this logic should be expected from Columbia administrators.
Summer RA's are hired directly by Housing Services.
