The Student Government Association (SGA) executive board appointed a residential life chair, a new position on the executive board, last semester. Sam Andler ’12 worked to create this position, which he now fills, in order to better organize and define the roles of dorm presidents on campus.

Former SGA Publicity Chairs Ricky Schwartz ’11 and Justin Rouse ’12—who served during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years, respectively—attempted to better organize the efforts of the dorm presidents in addition to publicizing the work the SGA did. Andler realized that it would be beneficial to have a separate SGA position to serve this function.

Andler attended SGA meetings last year as a community advisor and liaison for Campus Life. He noticed a lack of coordination and accountability in the dorm presidents program.

“Dorm presidents didn’t have much of a focus. They didn’t have a job description,” he said. “There was nothing in their paperwork that told them exactly what they were supposed to do, their requirements for newsletters and contact with their dorm and what was expected of them.” SGA Publicity Chair Ray Rieling ’12 said, “The idea is to really streamline and make what we think could be a great system, great.” Thus far, Andler has met with all of the dorm presidents to help them define their goals for the year and devise a system with which they can show their residents their progress toward these goals.

Andler is also working to publish an official job description for dorm presidents. There is a working document at this time, which Andler is editing as problems arise.

Dorm presidents are now encouraged to set and announce short-medium-and long-term goals for their dorm and campus life in general. Each dorm president has a bulletin board upon which they show their residents their goals and post any progress toward those goals.

One example of a long-term campus goal is an initiative started by Mary Low Dorm President Em Jamieson ’14. Jamieson would like to enable students to compost within the dorms to work toward the campus goal of adopting green practices.

Andler said that his continuing function as residential life chair is to support the dorm presidents in any way possible and facilitate any changes toward which they are working.