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Alex Gill isn’t sure if she will be able to afford her medication in the coming months.

For Gill, a resident adviser in Brewster Hall at Syracuse University, her mental health and ability to perform well in her courses depends on her access to medication. But her small salary as a main desk assistant, an additional job offered to RAs, means she can barely afford it.

“(RAs) are promised very, very immaterial things, things that are not tangible, that you cannot say ‘I have this’ without it being taken away at the end of the semester,” Gill said.

In an online survey conducted by The Daily Orange of RAs at SU, 28 of the 49 respondents indicated they are either unsatisfied or extremely unsatisfied with their compensation. Another 13 respondents said they were neutral about their level of compensation.

An RA in Flint Hall was one of the unsatisfied respondents. They work eight hours per week outside of being an RA, in addition to being a student.

“We work a lot of hours and keep getting additional responsibilities added to our role with no additional compensation,” the Flint Hall RA said in the survey. “I should not have to work a second job on top of my RA position to keep going to this school. Especially because RAs are supposed to be available at any given moment and students are allowed to contact us 24/7.”

RAs at Syracuse University are compensated with complimentary meal plans and room-and-board, but many RAs on campus feel this is not enough with the increasing number of duties their job entails.

“I’m extremely grateful to have my room and board covered, but at the same time, I’m a college student with my own needs and getting a job on top of this one can be annoying at times,” a Boland Hall RA said in the survey. “My job is flexible so I’m lucky, but I know it’s difficult for many to manage both the role and having a job.”

More than two-thirds of respondents work outside of their RA role. Five students indicated they work more than 20 hours a week at other jobs in addition to their RA role and classes.

Ivana Xie | Asst. Digital Editor

But the RA contract allows only 10 hours of commitments outside of being an RA and taking classes, said Will Mahaney, who was previously an RA.

Madi Messare, an RA in Shaw Hall, said that she believes COVID-19 has led to increased responsibilities and caused more stress for RAs.

“Room and board is not cutting it anymore because of how much is asked of you and how much stress is put on your mental health as a student as well,” Messare said.

She also feels SU does not prepare RAs to deal with their resident’s mental health crises.

“In real times of crises I feel like (Student Living) is not actually there for residents,” Messare said. “There’s a lot of mental health issues and they put a lot of pressure on RAs to deal with it, when RAs are just students. We get training, but not enough to be an on-call counselor.”

RAs are supposed to report incidents to the counseling center at the Barnes Center at The Arch, but appointments are hard to get with so few counselors and such a large student body, Messare said.

Senior Director of Student Living Terra Peckskamp said that RAs receive training and supervision by staff. This includes mental health training in August and again in January.

“Our RAs are serving in a student leadership position with responsibilities including working the main desk, being on-call and working over fall and spring breaks,” Peckskamp said in an email to The Daily Orange.

Peckskamp said in the email that senior staff with Student Living, formerly known as the Office of Student Living, meet regularly to work with the RA Advisory Board and have an open-door policy for RAs with concerns.

“We value and appreciate the role RAs play in our communities,” Peckshamp said in the email. “And as evidenced by the high number of applications we have received for next year’s positions, we know students also recognize the important leadership role they can play on campus as an RA.”

A Shaw Hall RA indicated in the survey that they felt neutral about their position.

“We had to ensure covid policies within the dorms and (were) asked to do a lot more with covid requirements for residents which is not compensated enough for these past 2 years,” the Shaw Hall RA said in the survey.

Another RA told The D.O. that they sometimes feel their safety is at risk when they are on-call. Due to COVID-19, RAs are required to remind residents to wear their masks in groups. They’ve been met with confrontation, the RA said.

“Sometimes you just get into situations that could be scary or threatening,” they said. “You have the potential of that happening every single time you’re on call, which is like a part of the job that they don’t really tell you about during interviews.”

Intentional interactions are another part of the job this RA said wasn’t made clear during the application process. This requires RAs to speak with each resident at least once a month and complete a write up about it to check in with residents mental health.

The RA said it’s important to check in with residents, but that can be difficult on a floor of 30 people.

“Me trying to talk to 30 people every single month is a lot, and it takes up a lot of my personal time,” they said.

They also mentioned that the resident directors have made the job worse.

“They’re all good at some things, but their cons outweigh their pros and the way they work together is awful,” they said.

Mahaney, who quit his RA job this semester, also said the RDs were hard to work with.

“I didn’t go out quietly,” Mahaney said. “I told them — my boss and higher-ups in (Student Living) — very clearly: I’m quitting because of you all. It’s not the residents, it’s not the other RAs, I love them. It’s your fault for all the extra stuff that you’re putting in the job that isn’t necessary.”

But Mahaney said it’s important to remember that RAs have room and board paid for, which is valued at nearly $19,000 for the academic year according to Student Living.

“It’s just hard to see that you’re getting paid when you’re not getting the money, you’re just not paying the money (to live on-campus),” he said. “That’s a big thing, too. Especially now, because I just quit. So now having to buy groceries and pay rent every month, it was something I definitely took for granted.”

DISCLAIMER: Asst. news editor Francis Tang is an RA. He recused himself from editing this article in all means, and therefore had no influence over the content.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, Alex Gill’s pronouns were misstated. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on February 17, 2022 at 12:13 am

Contact Katie: ksmcclel@syr.edu | @katie_mcclellan