Momentos From My Time as SAACURH Director

We have all seen the post where you are given the triangle of enough sleep, good grades, and a social life and you are only allowed to choose two, but something I think this post is missing is extracurricular involvement. Instead of choosing two out of the three, many people are instead balancing all three and adding in leadership roles in organizations. For those small number that decide to be a student leader in Residence Life, they soon realize that just because they are not on duty, does not mean they are off the clock. 

Resident Advisors become the people that their residents go to for everything, from how to get a stain out of a dress to when they are down about a break up. And for the RAs, these counseling sessions come at odd hours, when they are trying to catch up on sleep, eating, and other self-care habits. But you know the one amazing thing I have gotten as my time working in housing? These people are the first to say they will help and the lasts to say no. They go above and beyond the call of duty and truly exemplify what it means to be a student leader.

From NRHH to RBD, NACURH has its very own language that people don’t seem to understand. The ABCs of NACURH can be complicated and hard to maneuver, especially if you are thrown in head first. For me, my first “real” conference was the annual NACURH conference, which is a conference of roughly 2500 people from six different countries that descend upon a college campus to learn, network, and hopefully bring back ideas to make residential housing on their own campus better. The one thing that the description is lacking is the insane amount of cheering, excitement and all around good times that are to be had.

I can honestly say that looking back at that first conference that I would not be the Regional Director for the largest region in NACURH, nor that I would find myself changing what I thought were such set in stone plans for my future. But alas, like all things that are supposedly set in stone, my plans changed... Drastically. I went from being an early entry pharmacy student to a person with a passion for this organization, for higher education, and for student affairs. All of these have combined into this crazy, interesting, exciting path that I have found myself wielding the gavel of the South Atlantic Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls.