Resident Assistant applications due online by Jan. 28

Resident Assistants play a large role in Residence Life and building community at Southeast Missouri State University. For anyone who has ever thought about being an RA, now is the time to apply.

Allie Wisker is the area coordinator for the north side of campus, the Laferla Hall Director and is in charge of the hiring process for RAs. She said Residence Life will be hiring about 100 students for positions and typically between 175 to 250 students will apply, including returning RAs.

"I don't know that there are a whole lot of things in particular that we're looking for -- we want people who want to make a difference in their residents' lives and who have a drive to get involved on campus, but other than that we're pretty open," Wisker said. "We want a diverse staff, we want a staff that represents the Southeast students, so we have RAs that fit all different types and we want to keep up with that."

Applicants must have above a 2.8 cumulative GPA, be in good standing with the university and complete their application by 5 p.m. Jan. 28.

"If you're debating about applying, I absolutely encourage people to apply, because even if you don't get the position, you get a lot of really great experience during the process," Wisker said. "There's experiences that you get to have that you might not have otherwise throughout the process, so in terms of, like, development, the process itself is really good. I think though, most people do this job because they have the drive to do it. We want people to really take it seriously, though, like don't think that you can just kind of go about it and not care what you're doing. It's a job, it's a leadership opportunity, so as long as you're going to take it seriously we definitely want you to."

The process begins by completing the online application, which includes answering questions about the job, submitting an updated resume and attaching a photo.

"The only reason we ask for a picture is because we get so many applicants we want to make sure we're talking about the right person," Wisker said.

Once the applications have been looked over by the hall directors, interviews will be set up. Each applicant will have two roughly 25-to-30-minute interviews with two staff members; at least one of whom will be a current hall director. Then there is a bit of a wait as the decision is made about who will move on to the next step, which is a presentation given in front of the hall directors.

In the past, the presentations have been the only part of the process that returning RAs must complete to be rehired, but this year Wisker said they are trying something new.

"Based on feedback from hall directors and feedback from current staff members who have gone through the process a couple times, we're switching it and we're going to do similar to like a speed dating thing with all the hall directors," she said. "So all of our current RAs will get a chance to sit down individually with all of our current hall directors for a short period of time to get asked questions."

The returner process will not happen until March, because it is one of the final steps of the hiring process. After the returning RAs have been interviewed, the hall directors then make all the selections.

"Nobody is guaranteed a job, returners aren't guaranteed a job back, so everybody is on the board, as we say, and it's available for discussion and decision making if they're going to be hired or not," Wisker said.

To apply for a resident assistant position or to learn more, visit semo.edu/residencelife/ra-apply.html.