After a rigorous selection process, the University’s Housing and Residence Life program has selected its student leaders for the 2017-18 academic year.
Third-year College students Tyler Ambrose and Joshua Jaspers will serve as the resident staff program co-chairs. Both currently serve as senior residents.
“Tyler and Josh are both incredibly distinguished in their service to the program and bring with them a tremendous amount of skills and experience,”said Jackson Nell, current resident staff chair and a fourth-year College student. “They have, I think, a vision to continue to unify our program between our upper-class and first-year areas in particular and to really continue to make sure that our program supports its staffers, as well as its residents.”
Ambrose and Jaspers were promoted through a process that included a written application and three rounds of interviews.
“[One interview] is with the executive committee of the resident staff program, which is the senior residents and vice chairs,” Nell said. “Another’s with the vice chairs themselves, and then the last is with the hiring committee, which is made of the current chair, the vice chair for promotions and then the various deans and area coordinators.”
Jaspers said he appreciated the thoroughness of the process because it allowed candidates to get a better understanding of the groups they will be interacting with.
“I think that’s important too because you see the different sectors with which you interact when you have the job. You interact with professional staff, with the executive committee and then with the leadership team, so it is all relevant,” Jaspers said.
Once selected, the resident staff chairs work as a liaison between faculty and students.
“The most important aspect / responsibility of this position is that they lead and set the vision for the entire resident staff program each year,” Andy Petters, assistant dean of students, said in an email to The Cavalier Daily.
Nell currently serves as the sole resident staff chair. He said a single chair can more easily ensure consistency and collaboration across housing, but the size of the program made the job incredibly demanding for one individual. He noted the program has 257 staffers and 6,500 residents.
“That’s a lot of information and a lot of tasks to do,” Nell said. “Two people really are best suited to running this size and intensity of a program.”
The resident staff chair position deals with a variety of issues involving Housing and Residence Life.
“[HRL issues range from] promoting inclusive communities, to supporting residents going through crisis, to policy enforcement, to programming, to having fun and building relationships with our residents and our communities, so our functions are diverse and span basically every single issue that exists at our University,” Nell said.
Both Ambrose and Jaspers served as resident advisors during their second year, then were promoted to senior residents their third year.
Outside of his senior resident responsibilities, Jaspers is a children’s soccer coach with Madison House, as well as a University Judiciary Committee support officer and University Guide. Ambrose holds leadership positions in the Black Male Initiative, where he directs a book club part of the program, as well as the Black Student Alliance.
The incoming co-chairs have experience working together in a professional setting, which they believe will make for a smooth transition.
“What we know about the basic structure is that we’re going to split it up by policy areas,” Jaspers said. “We both are really excited to work together and to work with the people across the program, whether it’s the student staffers or professional staffers.”
In terms of the future of HRL, Jaspers and Ambrose said they hope to continue the work set forth by Nell and the current vice chairs.
“Part of our responsibility as co-chairs over the next year is going to be institutionalizing some of that progress that’s been made over the past year to ensure that the gains aren’t lost and then continuing to enrich the residential communities and the experience that our staffers will have,” Ambrose said.
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