The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 17

Moral Behavior of Resident Assistants

Major versus minor violations. Participants made it clear that there were varying
levels of policy violations. Participants used
the terms major violations and minor violations;
however, what deﬁned a minor violation was
not necessarily universal. Participants spoke
about noise, guest-card policy violations, and
lockouts as minor violations. Sam stated,
There's some things that I now know are less
severe; less really important to document.
You know, some things that don't have to
be documented, I guess . . . They probably
should be, but things that it wouldn't be a big
deal if they weren't.

Alcohol safety decisions. All the participants mentioned confronting situations that
involve alcohol consumption as a violation,
though a majority of them considered alcohol
possession and consumption to be a minor violation. Many times, participants took it upon
themselves to determine whether or not students required medical attention as the result
of their level of intoxication. They made this
decision even in light of the policy stating the
need to contact EMS to make an ofﬁcial assessment. As Gabrielle described, "If I see
someone and I know that they're barely tipsy-
they look like they consumed one or two, I can
turn a blind eye to it." Molly, another RA, had
this to say:
If they come back, and they're stumbling, and
they go right to their room, you know, who are
they really hurting? I feel like . . . okay; for the
way that at least I look [at] it as, like [I] said,
if they're not . . . if they're walking and they're
just like, "Oh, I'm a little lopsided." You know,
that's ﬁne.

Resident attitude. Resident attitude at the
time of confrontation played a large role in

Resident attitude at the time of
confrontation played a large role
in participants' decision-making
process regarding whether to
hold residents accountable . . .
When residents were compliant
with RAs' requests to turn music
down or dispose of alcohol as
instructed, participants were
more likely not to hold the
students accountable for the
infraction.

participants' decision-making process regarding whether to hold residents accountable for
a violation, give them a warning, or simply
choose to ignore their behavior. When residents were compliant with RAs' requests to
turn music down or dispose of alcohol as instructed, participants were more likely not to
hold the students accountable for the infraction. Kate stated,
I've written up just based on them being
belligerent. Like, "Why are you knocking on
my door? Why are you telling me to turn
my music down? I can play it as loud as I
want." So that . . . I've had that incident and
that's a clear write-up . . . Just because it's
disrespectful, you know. I can knock on your
door, like . . . I'm on duty . . . I have [the] right
to [laughs]. . . So yeah; a lot of times with
that, it's just . . . their attitude.
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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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