CONVERSATIONS The right tool for the job: A selfie stick captures a team of RAs during training at Lake Forest College. PHOTO COURTESY OF RAS AT LAKE FOREST COLLEGE Student Drivers RAs share how they were prepared for life on the front lines. Training paraprofessional staff each summer is an exercise in blind faith. The training schedules are robust and are crafted carefully from past experience, student development theory, and a complex understanding of the role of the resident assistant. But it's impossible to predict what KNOWLEDGE DOMAINS in this article 56 TALKING STICK By Stacy Oliver-Sikorski situations student staff will encounter during their tenure in the role. Staff are given a multitude of tools and resources in hopes that they will Human Resources Provide job supervision to paraprofessional and/or administrative staff. have the right one among them in the moment they need it. Sometimes they don't have the right tool, though. And sometimes they have a hard time accessing it when needed because it's jumbled in with the other tools. And sometimes there are tools they simply don't need.