Welcoming New Residence Life Staff
Harley Woods | September 16, 2021
Ruby Jane Moser
RJ Chittams outside Dodge House speaking on resident life at Warren Wilson.
For the academic year of 2021-22, Warren Wilson College (WWC) has had the pleasure of welcoming a completely new set of staff to Residence Life. Each staff member previously working at Dodge House — the Center for Student and Residence Life — has resigned and relocated.
Who are the new staff members? Associate Dean of Student Life and Director of Residence Life Ralph “RJ” Chittams Jr. has filled the positions left by Joyce Milling. Although there is now only one person filling these roles, Chittams comes to WWC with experience in residence life and housing.
“Most times I just say ‘director of residence life’ because that’s the part of the title that makes sense to people,” said Chittams, whose work experience comes from Virginia Wesleyan University, University of Utah, Salisbury University and University of Alabama.
Other staff members include: Cassidy Pindur, a graduate assistant from the Higher Education of Student Affairs program at Western Carolina University (WCU) who is the area coordinator for Sage Circle, Colton Goodman, area coordinator for the Ballfields dorms, and John Collins, area coordinator for main campus.
Within Chittams’ hopes for the school, he wants to open communication between administration and students to properly inform people of what is going on and why things are happening. This idea is a piece of his strategy to build trust between housing administrators and students.
“A three tier system that I work through is that I want our office to be consistent and to be fair, but I also want our office to be consistently fair,” Chittams said. “We want students to know that no matter what you look like, what your appearance is, or how other people on campus perceive you, what the group thinks, regardless of all of that, we have a social contract and we are going to follow that.”
Ethan Vanderbleek, a senior, captain of the men’s soccer team, ENS major and resident assistant (RA), spoke about the different approach to setting boundaries in residence halls.
“They’ve already given us new expectations to work within and I think that’s already an indication that they’re going to be really different,” said Vanderbleek.
When a student has a problem, whether it be a housing conflict or a conduct issue, the student should go to the RA first. Then the RA will show up with the area coordinator as a support figure for both the student and the RA. If the issue cannot be resolved, the area coordinator will then involve Chittams. This system is in place to build more trust between students and RA’s as well as to avoid overwhelming Chittams while underwhelming the area coordinators.
“RJ, Colton, John and Cassidy, they now have a better support system built for the RA’s so we can do more within the dorms,” Vanderbleek said. “If a student or a resident on campus has a problem with a specific thing, it’s one of them that will show up with the RA instead of just the RA alone.”
This is different from in the past where students would go to Ashley Constantino for conduct or Luke Strawn for housing. Constantino took on more administrative tasks after Milling resigned in January, while primarily observing student conduct campus-wide. Strawn’s role was exclusive to campus-wide housing, including emotional support animal (ESA) forms, room changes, new and returning student housing selection and RA supervisor.
“There is a change of the attitude around residence halls that they’re trying to make widespread campus culture that students may find kind of annoying to accept at first,” Vanderbleek said. “I think as students realize they can’t keep getting away with little things now it will be kind of a transition period, but ultimately really good.”
Vanderbleek mentioned a common student concern surrounding cleanliness within dorms and the off campus cleaning service that WWC uses.
“I think it’s gonna be so beneficial for students, and it’s gonna make everything a lot nicer than it has been and a lot more inviting for new students and for old students to come back to. I think they’re gonna do a fantastic job,” said Vanderbleek. “They want students to have fun and feel safe and comfortable in the dorms.”
Pindur, who was also an RA during her undergraduate years at WCU, provided additional information to support what Chittams and Vanderbleek said.
“I think the big thing right now is accountability across the board,” Pindur said. “We want students to be able to come to our office to talk about their issues rather than posting on the app about it. We don’t really get on the app that often so we don’t see when there’s issues.”
Both Chittams and Pindur invite students to come to Dodge House and get to know them. Pindur assured that they all want to involve themselves with everyone on campus.
“We’re all very personable people,” said Pindur. “We want to hear concerns; we want to fix things.”
Additionally, Chittams said that WWC claims to be a community full of people who look out for and care for each other. He then provided an anecdote about seeing behavior contradictory to that statement wherein a dirty plate from Gladfelter was left outside. By picking up the plate and trash, Chittams expressed that one simple action from a student or faculty member can allow WWC to take a step in the right direction.
“Community is a really big thing for me personally and I think that really vibes with Wilson. Let’s do it,” Chittams said. “Let’s do better.”