SEAHO Report - Winter 2020 - 39

SEAHO Feature Articles
Doing More with Less: Chasing the Dream of a Full Staff
By Benjamin Huff and Jeannie Hopper, University of Mississippi
For seven whole months last year, our residence life team was fully staffed. You heard me. Fully. Staffed. For
seven whole months. It was like we were working in a dream world. Everyone was able to do their actual job -
the real one in the job description they were hired to fill. Everyone had a direct supervisor who knew them, a
community they focused on, and teams they built.
It was beautiful.
But, like most beautiful things, it was never meant to last.
Residence life is that special profession where if we are doing our jobs well, we are forced to regularly say
goodbye to our best and brightest staff members. Graduate students stay with us for two years. Entry level
professionals average three, and even mid-managers seem to cap out around year five. Job postings litter our
timelines and news feeds year-round as staffs desperately put out the call to keep those residence hall staff
apartments filled.
I am hard pressed to think of any staff I have ever served on that remained fully staffed for an entire academic
year. And I have been in this profession for almost twenty years. It is simply the nature of our field.
But, beyond the always-fun need to find yet another person willing to serve on a search committee, what are
the actual impacts of the revolving door mentality in residence life? How does being short-staffed affect our
students? Our remaining staff?
Just this past week, I found myself sitting in my supervisor's office putting a smile on my face as I assured him
our team could cover the open positions currently in our halls. We hired two new staff members in December,
and yet are still short one graduate assistant and one entry-level professional. One of our mid-managers also
just announced an incredible new job, so we will be down three pivotal team members by March 1st. Each
opening came with celebrations - a well-loved, hardworking colleague was offered a new role that provides a
professional step-up for their career. It's great news, but filling those positions is not always possible mid-year,
and the burden of covering the workload falls on the already sore shoulders of our current staff.
As the leader of our residence life area, it is my job to find the right structure that will provide the best possible
service for our students. For us this year, that has meant moving no less than 7 staff members around in their
community assignments to take on more, or at the very least, different responsibilities than they started the
year with in August. That's an awful lot of change in a short amount of time, particularly for a field that prides
itself on building community and relationships. What is the impact to a community when its leader is switched
out mid-year? What is the impact to that leader when all the work they put in to building a team is suddenly no
longer relevant and they are forced to start from scratch mid-year in a new hall with new students and RAs who
remain wistful for their previous supervisor?
With every staffing change I have had to make, I weigh these questions endlessly in my mind. Often, I have
dedicated staff members who step up and volunteer to take on more responsibility and help out by covering an
extra hall or chairing an extra committee or hearing a few extra conduct cases each week. But not always.
Sometimes each of us ends up taking on more when we truly don't feel like we can handle even one more
meeting a week. But, as true professionals who care about our students, we smile and nod and say "Put me in,
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SEAHO Report Winter 2020

SEAHO Report - Winter 2020

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