Residence Life Operations

This report explores residential life operations at large research universities in Canada and the United States. It focuses on departmental organization and staffing, as well as residence life programming facilitated by students and faculty.

Canadian departments operate as ancillary units

100

total staff members (in a residence life department, on average)

This structural difference impacts the funding and reporting structures at the profiled institutions. Residence Life departments that operate as an ancillary unit, such as those at Institution B and Institution G, fund their residence life programming through students’ room and board fees. These departments also operate further removed from Student Affairs and central institutional leadership than the Residence Life departments at profiled U.S. institutions, including Institution H, which report directly into the Dean of Students or a similar administrator. Central institutional budgets typically fund residence life functions at profiled U.S. institutions.

RAs oversee on-site student support and community-building

1:27

average RA:Student ratio at selected profiled institutions

RAs provide a main source of support for students in residence, both at the hall and building level. RAs’ responsibilities typically revolve around community-building, programming, and student support. They respond to a wide range of issues, including mental health crises and academic concerns. At all profiled institutions, administrators compensate RAs by covering their room and board costs, paying them an annual stipend, or providing some combination of both benefits. Given the complexity of the RA role, the RA application process evaluates each candidate’s ability to respond to crises, direct students to campus resources, and act as a leader among their peers.

Residence life programming builds community and ensures student wellbeing

Institutions that do not use centralized curricula, such as Institution D, prefer to prioritize student autonomy in planning residence life events. Other profiled institutions, including Institution F and Institution E operate under a hybrid model, where administrators define a set of broad monthly programming expectations and RAs develop specific programming within those set frameworks. At Institution B and Institution J, administrators define specific programming for RAs to implement. Administrators at these institutions prefer to standardize the residential programming experience across campus and unburden RAs from the program development process.

Living Learning Communities tailor the residential experience to academic or personal interests for select students.