In the selection of a new Resident Associate, the members of the committee and of Wiess College should consider which qualities any new RA would bring to the college. In the hope of a good selection pool to choose from, many strong candidates for the position will present themselves, each possessing unique qualities. Without trying to list all the idiosyncrasies of strong candidates, certain qualities from the pool should be valued more than others. This process of whittling down the metrics of consideration makes sense when considering the unique culture of Wiess in its present form, and the ambitions the students of Wiess College have for its future. Ultimately the process will enable us as a College to better select a strong RA that will serve the interests of our community in the fullest.
The Rice University website offers a helpful description of the roles of an RA within the residential college system:
A successful RA will make continual effort to know the members of his/her college, be accessible to and serve as a point of contact for all students within the college, and help them understand and access university resources. S/he will encourage and contribute actively to the intellectual, cultural, and social life of the college...
In consideration of a future RA, we should seek out members of our community which exhibit qualities that might serve as bell-weathers of their actions as RAs. What would indicate that an RA might be accessible during their time at Wiess? What qualities observed might translate well to an RA that contributes actively to the intellectual, social, and cultural life of the college? The process of selecting a new RA allows us to process the past instances of interaction with nominated members and then extrapolate to consider how living amongst us throughout the year they may act. It should be in the utmost importance to consider how an RA would serve the students at the college, and a practical way to evaluate such a quality would be to consider how approachable and open with their time any candidate might have been in the past.
Any discussion of the merits of an RA would be incomplete without a discussion of the merits and needs of the College. Wiess, it its age and long history, quite simply has changed slower than its people. The result is a College with a silent majority and vocally powerful minority. If it hasn’t been made clear previously, we can establish it now that Wiess in its present form does not serve the minority cultures within its midst close to adequately. Members of minority communities within the university such as members of the black undergraduate student population have voiced their dissatisfaction in the past. This dissatisfaction, particularly at Wiess, should be extended beyond traditional minorities into all minorities within the scope of the college, which can be defined to mean any member of the college who does not feel they ‘fit in’ to Wiess’s majority culture.
If we are to be successful in selecting a future RA, we should select and RA that will engage through their appointed position to help address this paramount issue within the College. Of course, true change should come through the acts of the students in the form of the Wiess Cabinet pursuing an agenda and non-cabinet members of the community also when possible getting involved. Yet with that, an RA that supports and encourages change in such a direction, while also serving as a point of contact for students who may traditionally feel marginalized by the Wiess majority culture would be a welcome addition to our community. Going back to formalized description of an RA, being accessible and serving all students within the College would mean any new RA should address the current blindspots of the Wiess college culture by particularly being accessible and serving the members of the college who feel alienated from it. It doesn’t need to be argued that members of the majority culture within Wiess are served more adequately than the rest at the present moment when the only members of the College who would disagree with such a claim are those majority members who are blind to the reality of the social situation.
Among the strong candidates possessing a variety of unique qualities, those who present themselves as bearers of change with a vested interest in genuine inclusivity should be valued over the rest. All other qualities, though important and placed within consideration, should be valued secondarily to this main broad goal. In prioritizing the selection of an RA which projects and understanding of minority/majority cultures and the necessity of reconciling such within the scope of the College community, we would take a meaningful step as College toward the change that for so long has been deeply necessary and slow to come. At a pivotal moment when we have the chance to affect the tone of the College leadership for the coming years, we have the responsibility to select an RA that will day to day help redefine what it means to be a Wiessman, and help to dismantle the systems creating a silent minority that has grown to a silent majority. It would signal a willingness among the College and committee members in particular to actually take action on a large and deeply entrenched issue within the college that has been a specter for many years now. Our next RA should be a Wiessman, and by that let us say that our next RA should be a member of our community consciously acknowledging and supporting us all.