Let's Talk UNLV

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This is a k, u and v studios original program.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of K, u and v 91.5. Let's talk UNLV. Now that we've gotten through graduation season, we need to start talking about what incoming students need to do to prepare for housing for this fall. And today's special guest Mr. Tim Sedgwick, is here to talk about just that. This is Tim, thank you so very much for joining me. So thank you. Actually,

Unknown Speaker 0:45
I love your intro music that I got. That got me going already.

Unknown Speaker 0:49
Excellent. Well, the way that I like to start the show is I like to talk about the origin story. So tell us how did you end up at here at UNLV? And how long have you been here? What apartments have you been in? Tell us that?

Unknown Speaker 1:00
Yeah, yeah, I've been in start at UNLV. It'll be 20 years ago in July. So coming up on my anniversary real quick. And I was at University of Oregon, I'd heard great things about specifically about unities housing program, it was doing some cutting edge things and UNLV student affairs program overall. So it was just really excited. Love the idea of living in Vegas thought I'd be here three years, maybe five years. And now I'm going on 20 years. It's all been in housing, residential life. I've been over the residential education part of the residential life part and for some period over the residential custodian, team. But yeah, I love it here usually the best place I've ever worked.

Unknown Speaker 1:41
Wow. Excellent. Excellent. So can you tell us how you deal with housing? So can you tell us some of the benefits of living in housing here on campus? Yeah, you

Unknown Speaker 1:52
know, there's a lot of the benefits that you know, there's the things that appeal to the parents, and I'm not sure who our audience is exclusively. So those things are, you know, nationally, we track there's been a lot of research, and most of it has shown significant gains in retention from freshman to sophomore year, persistence in college, and then higher graduation rates for students who live on campus. And most of that really is tied to the convenience, but also the increased social connections that students form on campus. And so they're more likely to return. You know, it's a large institution, we have a lot of commuter students, we only have about 1700 on campus. But if you live on campus, you live in the very heart of the institution, you know, the Rec Center, the Student Union faculty hours, the LEED library, all of those things are within walking distance and easily accessible. So I think the students, you know, sometimes don't focus on those academic benefit benefits of living on campus. There are more folks who focus on the social connectivity, and you're living with between 306 100 other students who are round your age typically. And just that social life is so much more vibrant when you live on campus, because you really have to go out of your way to not form social connections when you live in the residence hall out

Unknown Speaker 3:09
building on that sense of of belonging here on campus. Now, what are some of the difference our residence hall which ended with me being a news deal? I don't know all I know that Tonopah and I think South complex or something to that effect, but can you tell us the different residence halls here on campus?

Unknown Speaker 3:24
Yeah. And I appreciate Dr. Scales, you've been active and engaged with our residential communities and really helping us build some of those communities, specifically in Tonawanda, and South complex. We've got four residential complexes, Dayton complex, which is exclusively for first year students. And a lot of our academic connections, facilities and satellite labs are within Dayton complex. Then we have Tonopah, which is right across from this building, from the Greenspun and right next to the Student Union. And that's our largest complexes, both the first residence hall at UNLV. And then we built on to that building. So now it houses about 640 students. And then we have South complex which is over by Dayton. So really close to the Rec Center. And that's a mix of first year and returning students and then UCC, which is our upper class complex directly across from the Rec and Wellness Center. And that is exclusively for non first year students or for students who are 23 and over starting in college, oh, that is an all singles room building. So, you know, very different culture than the other complexes.

Unknown Speaker 4:36
So if a student is a sophomore, they can stay in that building and UCC as well, correct. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 4:41
Sophomore above. We have graduate students we have. A lot of the students choose to live in UCC and they're all Deluxe singles with twin beds. So it's a little different living environment than our first year students would experience.

Unknown Speaker 4:54
Wow, it sounds like you know, there's a certain amount of prestige that will come with living in UCC Wow. I have a

Unknown Speaker 5:00
lot of students love it is my favorite building on campus. It's our only kind of stick built building so it's a little more creaky and make some noises. But you've got your own balcony, you've got a really nice room set up with both the living area and a sleeping area. So our returning students do really enjoy that. It fills up quickly. Excellent. Excellent.

Unknown Speaker 5:17
Well, can you briefly tell us about the different themed floors, particularly how towns Stonewall in the women floor and any of the other thing floors also like to throw in there to make us aware of I can, and let us know. Also, when you're talking about the theme floors? How do students get to be a part of these things? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 5:34
three questions. Well, yeah, so just to preface that we're really rebuilding all of our thematic communities. You know, we housing overall across the nation kind of went through this Lowell during the COVID period when a lot of buildings shut down. And that was the case at UNLV, too. So we've had to rebuild a lot of those connections. So a lot of our thematic communities are focused on academic connections. So really bringing vibrancy and life to the students who already know what their major is going to be. So we have hospitality, engineering, fine arts floors, an honors floor. First Year Experience for the ones you're speaking to initially were those identity based floors, which is our all women's floor, how old town and Stonewall. And so and those, we've built up a wonderful connections both with our First Year Experience Office here on campus, with our student diversity programs, services here on campus. So those will have satellite offices over and South complex were specifically Stonewall and how old town are. And I know you've done some work. And I appreciate we really appreciate you did some focus groups, with those communities this past spring and fall to really kind of flesh out what we want them to look like in the spring. But how old town is is named after John Howell, who was the first black landowner in Clark County back in 90 era back in 1870. And it's designed for for any student, but it is focused on students who want to learn more about the history culture of black, the black and asked African diasporic communities here at UNLV. So any student has a real passion or interest in that. And as he is talking about Black and African American cultural issues and resources here on campus for for students who identify as Black or African American, but any student is welcome to be on that floor. And Stonewall is our LGBT, LGBTQ plus floor. And it's really designed for students who are identified in that community or allies that community and want to live around other students who want to focus on issues within that community, and resources for that community here on campus. And then the all women's floor is in those two floors are in Tonopah I'm sorry, South complex, as well as the student diversity programming satellite office. And then the all women's floor is over and Tonopah first floor, and it is for women identifying students.

Unknown Speaker 7:58
Wow, absolutely. That's good. Excellent. So can you what can a new freshmen expect from living on campus? Because usually, most schools, freshmen are required to live on campus? So what can they actually expect the real life version of it? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 8:12
no, that's a great question and and to be transparent, our first year students who are from outside of Clark County, and there are some exceptions to that, but are required to live here on campus. So first of all, there is a first year live on requirement for students outside of Clark County. But you know, one of the big things is nationally, we track this data, about 70 to 75% of students who live on who are coming into college have never shared a living space before. So they've had their own room, since they were you know, since they were very young. And so that that is one of the transitions that are freshmen students can expect is that you will have a roommate. There are some exceptions to that if you're going through the Office of Student Disability Services, there's a requirement to have a single room we can accommodate that. But one of those transitions is learning to live communally, and learning how to negotiate those, those living environments. And it really is great preparation for when you're in a relationship and living with someone or later on have roommates, or a partner. It's wonderful to kind of learn how to navigate those things early. But really what you can expect is wonderful social opportunity. So there's a lot of pro educational programming and developmental programming. But there's also a great number of social programs. And it's a wonderful way to get socially involved here on campus, whether that's through the clubs and orgs that you can, that are very active in the residence halls or just through living with 300 to 600 other students around your age. It's a vibrant active community that students really find it easy to embrace other social, you know, those build those social bonds. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 9:50
and you know, that sounds good, especially for when you're like in the middle of the semester or going towards the end when you've been there for a while but how do you handle situations at the beginning of semester for those incoming for estimate students, and maybe some others as well, that a homesick How do you have that?

Unknown Speaker 10:04
That's a great question Doug scales. And, you know, we're fortunate we've got a resident assistant, which is a highly trained student peer who lives on every floor, who helps students with those transitional issues. So if you're coming here, and you may be a first generation college students, so you don't have parents or others who can kind of coach you as to what to expect. But you'll have an RA on that floor who can coach you and help you understand what the resources are on how to navigate campus, how to build those social relationships if you're struggling, but all of our students come back this year, a week early for the rebel Welcome Week. And so they'll learn what the campus footprint is, learn how it where their classes are going to be. Start building those relationships with folks on their floor, their roommate and other people in the bill and the complexes. And it's just a really wonderful time to immerse yourself in the collegial environment. You mentioned kind of that that homes, you know that a lot of the time we see that homesickness emerging around that time, about 70% And one of the things we do is we normalize that that homesickness is that, you know, about 70% of students nationwide will experience some level of homesickness, about 20% will have kind of more elevated senses of homesickness, but part of it is just helping students know that that's a normal part of transitioning to college is that oftentimes, it's the first time away from the family unit. And you know, homesickness is a natural thing, but we've got trained peer advocates, those resident assistants on every floor that help students transition through those, those kinds of normal processes of development and getting accustomed to university life.

Unknown Speaker 11:46
Wow, excellent. So, you know, as sure as you're gonna have, you know, three to 600 students living together, of course, conflict is going on right now. So how do you handle conflict between, let's say, roommates, and especially one that says, you know, what, this can't be fixed, I need to change rooms. So how do you how do you guys handle that? Because I'm sure it's something like that happened?

Unknown Speaker 12:06
Yeah, that is a great question. And even the way you phrased it, I think is wonderful, because part of that much like with the homesickness is we need to normalize that conflict, because I think sometimes students come in with an expectation that they're, they Oh, this is going to be my bridesmaid or my best man at my wedding, and everything's going to be wonderful, and we won't have any conflict. And that's not very realistic. If you're living in close proximity and sharing a relatively small room with someone, conflict is going to arise. So part of that is normalizing that conflicts going to happen, we do some things to ameliorate that. One of that is having them do roommate agreements, before, you know the first day or two that they're there. So they talk through, it's a sheet that you fill out, you both fill it out together, you can meet with your IRA to kind of negotiate pieces. But you talk through those typical stumbling blocks about when do you prefer to go to bed? When do I prefer to go to bed? What are expectations jointly about how we're going to have guests over when it's appropriate when it's not? How do we communicate when we're having issues. So some of that we talked through on the front end without his roommate. And so we made agreements to kind of prepare students and that there will be things to come, the conflict will arise and give them tools to talk through that individually. And a lot of our students can just navigate those conflicts on their own and talk them through and they can be healthy. If it gets to the point where their residents aren't able to resolve those issues on their own. Then we have RAS who are trained in mediation, and they sit down with both roommates or sometimes the suitemates. If you're sharing, you know, it's typically set up where there's two rooms, and they share a bathroom together. And so those would be your suitemates. So the RAS will sit down with the roommates or suitemates. And kind of talk through give give folks an opportunity to share their perspectives, provide a kind of a ground rules for how those discussions will take place. And try to find a way to Yes, try and find like, what compromises can be made to make this a good situation for all the residents involved. So the RAS get a lot of exposure on that. And then we have external people if it's not resolved at that point, you mentioned a room change. You know, we don't want to see residents perceive a room change as a failure. You know, we do want them to try and resolve an issue. Sometimes lifestyles are incompatible. And we have students who are our early early morning people and we have students who are residents who are late late late night people. And sometimes that is very difficult to resolve particular if you're noise sensitive or light sensitive. So sometimes a room change is appropriate and we do provide for room changes, you can pick up a room change for him or you can change requests for him. We do that after the first three weeks of the folks living here. We still we don't allow room changes during those first three weeks, because that we want students to engage in that process of trying to negotiate with each other and resolve resolve those issues. Because those issues always going to come up so we want to make sure students are trying to resolve Have those issues. But after that third week, we allow room changes at any point. So you just fill out a room change request for him meet with your Residential Life Coordinator, which is the professional, master's level staff member who lives in each complex. They live there, they work there, they have an office there. And then the ER RLC kind of talks to you about what your room change requests is. And we do that so that the RLC can intercede if there's some other issues coming up. So if there's, you know, we have a number of resource offices here on campus and the RLC. And the RA can kind of redirect students if they're struggling in other ways than just a room change requests.

Unknown Speaker 15:35
Yeah. Well, you mentioned earlier about students coming back, like a week early for rebel week, are they able at that point, you know, once they meet the different people on that floor to decide, hey, this is who I would like to be roommates with? Or they still have to wait till that three weeks is up?

Unknown Speaker 15:52
Well, both of those can be true. They can decide, like, Hey, I've really formed a connection with this person and we jointly would like to live together? And how can how can we even do a room swap those kinds of things that does take place after that first three weeks, so you can still build that relationship and have that conversation and decide, yeah, that's the person I want to live with. But we do want folks to we there was that room change period on that hold on that first three weeks. So it's still a great time to kind of talk to your roommate and help them understand that, hey, it's nothing about you that I don't like is this I've got a real bond with this other person. think we'd be really compatible, and we want to do a room swap. So the RA then works to accommodate that room swap. But but that is after the third week.

Unknown Speaker 16:32
Yeah. Okay. Great. Great. So this, you know, of course, we just went last week through graduation this past Saturday, with the combination of all graduation together. Yeah, there's a lot of graduations. Yeah, this week. So what are some of the exciting things that you're working on during the summer that students can expect coming up for the fall?

Unknown Speaker 16:51
Well, I mentioned one of those that that rebel ready week, that's going to be a wonderful experience this year for all of our incoming first year students and other students too. But they, for the residential students, you can move in that week early, you get intense exposure to campus, there are some academic skill building pieces. So to ease that transition into the collegiate experience, so that we're really excited about that. There'll be a lot of programming opportunities and social opportunities during that time period. But we'll also you know, we talked about those thematic communities for for we've got 11 thematic communities, this fall with a couple new ones, the global languages floor, and the First Year Experiences floor will be new. But all of them will kind of be rebranded and relaunched and within create increased academic partners. So that's going to be really exciting for us, we just this spring opened up the hyper X gaming arena over in Tonopah complex. So that's gonna be really excited. We'll have new offices, satellite offices, there's going to be a career counseling space over in university or upper class complex UCC South complex, we'll have satellite offices for the first year experience and student diversity programming. Those will be brand new, and then in date, and complex will have academic tutoring, and academic coaching, and satellite offices within Dayton complex. So all of these things are, those are a lot of new initiatives. And some of them are just older initiatives that we're building up for fall. So those will be exciting for residents

Unknown Speaker 18:34
know for like the tutoring opportunities over in Dayton do with a student have to live in Dayton to get those opportunities or they can live in any other dorms and come over for that great

Unknown Speaker 18:43
question. Their housing, Dayton but they are available to any of the residents. And these are services that are available to any student at UNLV through the Academic Success Center on campus, but we do have those satellite offices specifically for our residential students so that it's a little increased convenience for those students rather than having to go to the Academic Success Center. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 19:05
excellent. Let's back up a little bit. Can you tell us tell those that are listening your title and your role? And how often was students actually get to interact with you versus interacting with the RA or someone on that floor?

Unknown Speaker 19:19
Yeah, I'm the Assistant Director for residential life. And so I supervise for residential life coordinators, one housed in every academic or rather residential complex. And then I also supervise the coordinator for residential education who supervisor our Residence Hall Association, which the student government here on campus, and students interact with me typically, when I see them when they're at their best and when they're at their worst. So I interact with a lot of our student leaders, RHA NRAS. I'm involved in the hiring and training processes for an indirect supervision for those offices. And then I also see them those students when they're out there where or sweating. When they're facing eviction or temporary removal from campus housing due to behavioral issues, they will typically meet with me to talk through that process and see if there's other options available. But most likely the residence would first meet with a resident assistant, the which is the peer mentor for every floor. And then next, they would meet with the Residential Life Coordinator, which is that trained professional staff member within each complex. So then I would be that kind of third level. So sometimes I meet with students or talk to parents, if there's issues that aren't being resolved at the complex level. I do talk with a lot of parents about concerns, and sometimes students with residence with their concerns. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 20:44
Okay. Okay. Can you share some advice for returning students, that's coming back to campus to live in housing?

Unknown Speaker 20:52
Sure. First, welcome back. We're we love having you back. I think for oftentimes, for our sophomore and junior students that they choose to come back to campus for that convenience factor that everything is is right at your fingertips. And I know oftentimes, our returning students feel like, Oh, I already have my social connections made, I've got my my group of friends, my peer group, and those are the folks I want to interact with, I think, particularly for our sophomore and junior residents. You know, at this point, they understand how campus works, they understand they've made that transition successfully. From first year students are already returning, they've got that groundwork underneath them, this is the time to take some nutrients, make some new choices, take some chances. So oftentimes, those students didn't get involved with clubs and orgs organizations during their first year, because they were focused on just, you know, under transitioning to college life. But this is a wonderful opportunity to to get more involved in your major. There are academic clubs, for every major on campus as a corresponding academic club. There's a lot of them are just social interest clubs, but really get involved in campus and really make greater connections on the academic side, but also on the social side. And part of that is just for your personal fulfillment. But we also know from the research that the more involved you are with campus, you know, the more connected you are to campus, both on the academic side, and the social side, the more likely you are to graduate from that institution. So improves your your kind of enjoyment of the experience, but also improves your persistence and graduate in likelihood that you're going to graduate.

Unknown Speaker 22:27
Yeah, absolutely. You know, being better connected to campus does, you know, lead to a student doing better in class and their grades and graduated. And so like you just said, so, I would think that as a sophomore, and especially as a junior and a senior, and maybe masters students, those students who want to like look back and realize, hey, you know, I was a freshman that one time, this is what I wish I had. So let me go back and mentor some of these incoming freshmen into the class. So how often does that happen happened when you know those those senior people here on Cloud, like the sophomores, juniors, you know, masters students, go back to mentor those students? Is there any kind of connection or any kind of programs opportunities for the freshman's to connect with the upperclassmen? Is that all

Unknown Speaker 23:10
there is, we see a large percentage of students who are returning who choose to apply to be resident assistants or choose to get involved with our RHA, our Residence Hall Association, which is that elected political or body that represents all of the residence hall students. Okay, so we see a lot of those kinds of formal connections where now that you're more experienced on campus, you're more able to take on some of those leadership roles. But we see a lot of informal mentoring on the floor is where, you know, every every residence hall Hall will have an RA on it, and they'll have floor meetings, and we see excuse me, we see those returning students really step up and and kind of being that informal advisor for that floor when the RAS away or, you know, just residents seeking them out to Hey, I know, you know, those those issues. I'm trying to get navigate right now. Can you give me some insight into that, but those aren't formalized roles. But there are a lot of leadership opportunities for our returning students as well. You

Unknown Speaker 24:10
know, when you think about working in a residence hall, whether you're the director or assistant director, whatever, usually you just a person, myself included, I would think, okay, it's just a place you know, where you go, you're going to make sure that the students have a bed to sleep in and, you know, place to do their homework. And that's it, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. So can you share with us just a few of the intricacies of what it takes to be a resonance director or assistant director or RA, because it more it comes with more than just providing the beta?

Unknown Speaker 24:41
It does and that is one of the distinctions we see from you know, there's a lot of apartment complexes around campus and places where, you know, after you've fulfilled that kind of first year living experience requirement, you can look at apartments, and some of our residents do that but a lot of them return because, you know, they they know Oh, that, you know, if you're you mentioned the RA position, a lot of the staff and this goes to our Residence Life coordinators and to myself, their primary role is the development of, of that student the development of the resident. So it's not just about making sure you're sleeping well and attending classes, it's about are you connecting academically to your program, because we know that's going to increase your graduation rate? How are you doing with your physical health with your mental health, you know, they can connect you with the Rec and Wellness Center, we've got our caps, which are Counseling and Psychological Services for students who may be experiencing struggle, struggle or trauma and addressing that. So we've got a lot of staff, myself and our director, who primary role is to make sure that that student, that when you leave after living with us that you are, you've gone through some travel transformational experience, experience experiences. So part of that might be just learning how to live communally learning how to negotiate differing expectations, which is something you'll do in a work environment, having that experience with a roommate is wonderful for understanding, hey, conflict is going to arise and how you approach that conflict is either going to be something that has positive results or negative results. And you'll learn from that. And so we help, we know that our students are going through all these transformational experiences. And so as we can help them develop and grow as individuals, we know that they'll have more success down the road, and when they're navigating those same typical type of situations with a partner or with somebody in a work environment, that they built those skills, so that they can handle them successfully.

Unknown Speaker 26:35
Yeah, and I'm sure you know, students get to the point where, you know, no matter what comes up, they're able to come to you because they're able to use your cultural capital here on campus, wherever they're having a problem in a particular class, I'm sure with you being here, 20 years, I'm sure you know, people on campus where you could direct these students, you know, if you have an optometrist in, I don't know, biology, you know, someone in that department that you can speak with to try to get an issue resolved, or if there's something going on on campus with that, you know, involved student programming, you know, Doctor DMC, and you can, you know, reach out or send an email to Dr. DMC to try to get this thing figured out for his students. So, it's always good when students can come to you, and expect more than just okay, this is your room assignment. This is where you got to sleep, that you have all these other things that you can offer students as well.

Unknown Speaker 27:25
That is I do, yeah, that is one of the ventures being here 20 years, but you know, even even outside of me, specifically, you're our resident assistants come back for two weeks earlier than anybody else on campus. They're the most trained student body, student leaders on campus. And so they know the resources, perhaps not as well as either and they're typically not RAS for 20 years. But, you know, they they know how to connect students to those offices, somebody's struggling academically, they know, what Academic Advising Center is available, and each of those colleges and how to connect them to so, you know, from from me down to every Ira on campus, we've got the folks who can connect you to the resource that will help you be successful.

Unknown Speaker 28:05
Yes, you know, and the team that that works with you, you know, yourself, Peter, the RAS, been meeting with you in some of these meetings, you know, things for us. And I know, personally, that these, this is a team that's been put together that you really show that you care about the students. And I've spoken about that in my own department about how that team works, they're looking out for the betterment of the student and for the what's best for the students. So, in closing, what advice, the one thing that you would like for students to know this common name for housing, the best piece of advice that you can offer that student

Unknown Speaker 28:42
in the broad scheme, it really is get involved and whatever your niche interest is, there is an organization or club, another student who shares that interest. So trying to find way I know when you're a first year student that first week or month, you're just trying to figure out where you get your food and where your classes are going to be. But once you navigated that, then look for what opportunities to get involved on campus. And there's so many things that will connect you to greater more depth in your academic work or building those those social connections or that social capital. Those things are going to make or break whether you're successful, or whether you're really enjoying that experience or not. So do whatever you can to get involved and we got staff who can help you get involved. Fantastic.

Unknown Speaker 29:27
This is Tim Sedgwick, our special guest today. Assistant Director in housing. Thank you so very much for being here with us today, here at K u and v night. 1.5.

Unknown Speaker 29:37
Thanks for having me, Dr. Scales. Appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 29:39
Thank you. And that's a wrap.

Dr. Renee Watson 29:43
For more or less talk to UNLV Be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook and let's talk about all the podcast Twitter and let's talk UNLV and Instagram and let's talk UNLV

Transcribed by https://otter.ai