The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 40, No. 2 & Volume 41, No. 1 - 42

sions of the socially responsible leadership
measure, there were signiﬁcant conditional
effects associated with this outcome. Similar
to our conditional effect ﬁndings with intercultural effectiveness, we found signiﬁcant
conditional effects of being an RA and attending a liberal arts college for four of the eight
socially responsible leadership dimensions
(consciousness of self, congruence, common
purpose, and citizenship). Two of these dimensions (consciousness of self and congruence) represent one's individual and internal
attitudes and behavior related to their sense
of social responsibility. The other two dimensions (common purpose and citizenship) represent one's commitment and relationship to
socially responsible leadership within a group
context. Interestingly, the RA experience at
liberal arts colleges appears to impact both individual and group aspects of students' socially
responsible leadership development. It may be
important for student affairs professionals to
further explore how the RAs at their institutions develop, or do not develop, a similar commitment to community values and citizenship.
Perhaps incorporating community service
in RA training and including a community
service expectation in residence life programming models is one way to further enhance
this aspect of RA development. In addition,
involvement in community service has been
shown to be positively associated with college
students' development of civic responsibility,
academic development, life skill development
(Astin & Sax, 1998), and appreciation for diversity (Boyle-Blaise, 1998). To the extent that
civic responsibility and intercultural effective-

ness are outcomes that higher education and
student affairs professionals hope to cultivate
among RAs, residence life staff should consider community service participation as an
integral component for encouraging RA development in these domains.
Taken together, these conditional effects
suggest that there may be something unique
about the RA experience in the liberal arts
college environment that fosters the development of both intercultural effectiveness and
socially responsible leadership. However, more
research is needed to triangulate these ﬁndings. It is also important to remember that,
regardless of institutional type or background
characteristic, RAs exhibited signiﬁcantly
higher scores on the consciousness of self dimension of socially responsible leadership
than did their non-RA peers. This suggests that
there is a unique contribution of the RA experience to students' understanding and clariﬁcation of their values, attitudes, and beliefs.
Whether or not this is a stated intention of the
RA experience is questionable. Nonetheless,
this study offers a unique glimpse at the educational and developmental beneﬁts of the RA position across 17 four-year institutions over four
years of college. The contribution of RAs to the
successful functioning of an institution's department of residence life is undeniable (Blimling, 2010). However, it may be important for
student affairs professionals to further explore
the educational advantages or disadvantages
that this unique leadership and employment
opportunity has on the college students who
take on the RA role.

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 40, No. 2 & Volume 41, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 40, No. 2 & Volume 41, No. 1