In VCU’s residence halls, two key missions – safety and community – are right at home

By Sian Wilkerson

With fall semester fast approaching, student and professional staff working in Virginia Commonwealth University's residential facilities are preparing to welcome thousands of Rams who will make their homes there in the year ahead.

The 11 campus residence halls will again become their own communities within the larger VCU community, serving as hubs of living and learning for nearly 6,000 students. At the helm of every facility is an extensive web of resident assistants, desk assistants, desk coordinators and hall directors who work to give students the best and safest experience possible.

That means wearing a lot of hats, whether answering questions, addressing crises or even handling the odd bit of maintenance, according to Terrae McCann, a hall director in Gladding Residence Center.

"Our staff across the board, both students and professionals, is extremely versatile. You have to be," said McCann, who helps manage GRC's dozens of RAs.

Part of building community within the residence halls is ensuring that they are safe environments.

"At VCU, we are deeply committed to fostering a safe and secure environment, recognizing that the well-being of our students is foundational to their success," said Aaron Hart, Ed.D., VCU's vice president for student affairs. "Ensuring safety in our residence halls is a collective effort, involving not only campus security and staff but also the active participation of our students. It's this shared responsibility that creates a supportive and conducive atmosphere for both learning and personal growth. Together, we strive to build a community where everyone feels secure and empowered to thrive."

GRC is the largest of the university's residence halls, accommodating more than 1,700 first-year students between two buildings. That means there are often hundreds of people coming and going during the busiest hours of the day.

Residence hall safety tips

Keeping GRC and other facilities secure requires knowing who is in the building. Each building has a single entrance, with an information desk staffed 24/7 by student assistants in the day and a hired security company at night.

To enter a residence hall, students who live in the building swipe their VCU ID at the front door, while visitors ring a doorbell to seek admittance from those on duty at the desk. Guests must be signed in by a resident and check in at the desk with identification, and while in the building, they must be with a resident at all times.

"All of these measures are there to help protect students," said Yusuf Rizvi, a desk coordinator with VCU Residential Life and Housing's main office. "Since we are a city campus, it's a little more important to focus on security."

As a coordinator, Rizvi oversees desk assistants, who often are the first point of contact for residents with questions as well as for arriving or departing guests.

"I like to talk to people," said rising sophomore Mya Morrison, a desk assistant. "So it's perfect."

While desk assistants are an initial layer of security in housing facilities, RAs are tasked with maintaining order and building community in the individual halls.

"We're like the middleman between the professional staff and the students. Since we're students, we can interact with [residents] on a more personal level than the professional staff can," said rising senior Llorielle Gregory-Jerome, who is entering her third year as an RA.

Though she will be serving as an RA for older students this year, Gregory-Jerome previously worked in GRC, a freshman hall, where she supported her residents as they navigated college life for the first time.

"You get to foster that experience with them and get to know them, try to see how you can help them in any way that you can," she said, whether that is "academically, personally, socially, financially or anything else - [it's] just getting them into a space where they feel comfortable with themselves as well as being on the college campus."

Residents access their residence halls using their VCU identification cards. Each hall has just one entrance and exit. (Kevin Morley, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Such support creates more than a sense of safety - it creates community. The staff cares about the individual residents and helps them address issues such as living with a roommate, sharing community spaces or being away from home for the first time.

"What we do here helps residents live out there," McCann said, referring to life after graduation. "We're role-modeling and creating policies and procedures for them to follow, because in the real world, that's what you have to do."

The ultimate goal is to get students to both buy into and give back to their community.

"It's our job to create that, to create a sense of belonging," McCann said. "At the end of the day, if residents aren't buying into it, then the community is fractured. So we want students to give back to their community."

That means locking doors, cleaning up after themselves, taking out the trash, engaging with roommates and suitemates, and coming to hall programming, he noted.

"That's the No. 1 message we like to get across to parents and residents," McCann said. "Yes, we'll help build community and create a sense of belonging. But we need you to pour back into the community. That's how you create a comprehensive community where everyone feels like they belong."

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