The Office of Residential Life hired three new residence hall directors (RDs) last week. The new hires are meant to fill the vacancies created by the resignation of three RDs on Sept. 9, as well as the vacancy in St. Williams Hall on Brighton Campus.
The new RDs - Luis Berdeja, Omar Miranda, and Colleen Kelly - are all Boston College graduate students. Berdeja will be responsible for Cheverus, Kostka, Medeiros, and Shaw House on Upper Campus, Miranda will be the RD for St. Ignatius Gate Residence Hall, and Kelly will be the RD for St. Williams Hall. A search is still in progress for an RD to cover Gabelli, Voute, and the Mods.
St. Williams Hall, until this month a dormant residence on Brighton Campus, was put into service for students when BC accepted 150 visiting students from New Orleans who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Henry Humphreys, director of Residential Life, said that new RDs are usually subject to the same comprehensive search process as any other professional staff member.
"In this case, though, there was a modified search conducted by myself, [associate director] Justin Price, and at least one of the assistant directors," he said.
Humphreys said that each person is reviewed for credentials and their capability to do the job of RD. "Do they have administrative skills, and also the student skills that will allow them to handle the supervision of a staff?" he said. "There's also program, policy enforcement, and a counseling aspect to the job. Normally, a search takes quite a bit of time."
An RD is responsible for choosing and administering a resident assistance staff, developing building-wide programming, coordinate with Facilities Services for building maintenance, as well as other tasks.
New RDs do not always come from within the ranks of the University. Residential Life conducts national searches, taking applications from people from across the country. Berdeja and Miranda both have experience working with Residential Life as graduate staff assistants (GSA). A GSA is a graduate student resident assistant with some administrative responsibilities. Berdeja is also part of the Minority Undergraduate Fellowship program, hosted by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
"The Minority Undergraduate Fellowship program is meant to encourage underrepresented groups to enter the field of student development," said Humphreys. "Not necessarily people in the AHANA community, but anyone from a group that is underrepresented in higher education."
Humphreys said that despite the circumstances of the most recent RD resignations, no changes have been made to the screening process that applicants must go through.
"When Residential Life is interviewing someone, they're being interviewed for their potential to be an administrator here," he said. "There's no way to know everything about someone's personal life. We try to vet them as well as possible."
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