Colorado School of Mines’ Department of Residence Life is a featured program.
One thing that makes the Colorado School of Mines student staff unique is our on-going training model. We follow national trends with a pre-opening training, but our commitment to student success doesn’t stop there! We have ongoing weekly trainings called Monday Lunch Lessons for our student staff. Our Monday Lunch Lessons serve as an in-service style of training to cover important and/or more timely information for our student staff members that either could not fit in our pre-opening training or aligns better with events later in the semester. All the Residence Life professional staff are also invited to come to learn more about how to support our unique student body.
Our Monday Lunch Lessons can serve a variety of purposes. One of the primary purposes is to serve as on-going training opportunity for our staff. Another is to be able to prepare our staff for how to improve their programming. We continually are able to use MLLs as an opportunity to showcase to our students examples of programming our professionals have seen, and can be adapted for our various communities. Our professional staff, campus partners, or our undergraduate senior staff present on these topics, every week.
Topics are varied and have included: Using Myers Briggs Typology Indicator in floor communities, Working with International Students, Alcohol education programming examples, Love Languages, Health and Nutrition, a Sexual Violence Prevention Refresher, Responsible Social Media Use, Financial readiness for staff transitioning out of the position, Social Justice Programming examples, to name a few.
Our Monday Lunch Lessons are required for all our live-in student staff to attend, and we have 90% of the staff attend weekly. The only exemptions are granted for students who have graduation requirement classes at that time.
We fund Monday Lunch Lessons through the meal plan all our students receive as a part of their remuneration for the Resident Assistant, Community Assistant, or Senior Staff roles. Every week, we take one meal equivalency to create a catered and buffet-style meal for our staff to enjoy as we learn together.
Submitted by Erik Buol, Residence Life Coordinator for Elm Hall and Weaver Towers