College Checkered: RAPPIN’ 2011 Conference Reminds RA’s to Begin with the End in Mind

Brenda Figueroa
The Paw Print

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend RAPPIN’ 2011 in Provo, Utah. This is a conference that is held every year for resident assistants all across the nation. Anna Dean, Alexandria Guthrie, Kellicia Morse, Jordan McHenry, Megan Hart, and Darius Czerny accompanied me.
We were all supervised and led by Alex Maffucci. On Friday, we took a nine-hour drive to Provo, Utah and that was one of the best bonding experiences I’ve had in a while. We were anxious to arrive to Brigham Young University (BYU), the school hosting the conference. We were all decked out in school spirit and incredibly excited to start meeting other RAs. After checking in at our hotel, we departed to the campus and enjoyed the open banquet along with a motivational speech by Jeff Sermon, an alumni from BYU.
After the banquet we all decided to take a tour of the campus and we were in awe at the size of the university and different activities that were held on campus on a regular basis. I found the FLSR complex to be fascinating. It houses about 150 residents and targets ten different languages including, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German, French, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Italian and Arabic; and only the target language is allowed to be spoken in the apartments at all times.
Each apartment has a host from the native country and they are encouraged to teach about the culture of their country. Is there any other way to learn a language? I think not. I woke up on Saturday ready to start my sessions that I carefully chose the night before. Each session was held by RAs from different schools and it was incredible to see some of the best leaders at work. One of my favorite sessions was entitled “Sticks and Stones” and Austin Campbell, a resident assistant from the University of New Mexico, presented it. This was a fun and innovative program that showcases usage of words and how they can affect others. This was a very powerful and emotional session and I am hoping to bring it to Adams State College this semester.
There were thirty-nine sessions all together and I wish I had enough time to attend them all. Each resident assistant that attended the sessions were asked to evaluate them and at the end BYU announced the top seven programs. This was a huge recognition for all the resident assistants who worked hard to put each program together. After the top seven programs were presented, we had a closing banquet and ended the night with dancing, karaoke and guitar hero.
That’s right amigos RAs know how to party.
This was overall a highlight of my semester. I was able to share my passion and experiences with other leaders and it was uplifting to be in a room with individuals that are all working towards the same common goal: to improve college life for all residents and to make a different on their campus.