When you walk into Resident Coordinator Jen Flowers’ office in Martzolff House, be careful not to step on building blocks or a sippy cup scattered around the floor. And watch out for a toddler with bright blond hair and brown eyes scurrying around, because he might try to trade you a toy for whatever you’re holding in your hand. Flowers is just one of 13 resident life staff members who live in a college dorm with their partners and/or children.
In all, 34 resident life staff members live on campus, said Judy Piercy, vice president for student affairs and director of resident life and off-campus living. These staff members include resident coordinators, like Flowers (formerly called resident directors); resident directors (graduate student positions); and assistant resident directors. The ages of children living on campus ranges from one month to 11 years.
Flowers became interested in resident life as an undergraduate at Ohio University when she was a resident assistant. She decided to pursue student affairs as a career because she enjoys working with students in an informal setting, she said. Flowers completed her undergraduate and masters degrees at OU and became an RC in 2000. She and her husband have lived in dorms ever since.
And when Flowers and her husband decided to start a family, their dormitory living arrangement didn’t faze them.
“It didn’t really seem odd for me” to raise a family in the dorms, she said. She and her husband considered the logistics of having a child, such as having enough space because they also have a dog, more so than the environmental upbringing. She now takes her son Ben, 16 months, all over campus.
‘We have a vending machine in our house’
Wendy Rogers, RC in Wray House, has three young boys: Colter Thompson, 11; Kolby Rogers, 9; and Caleb Rogers, 6. They’ve lived on campus their whole lives.
Colter, from Wendy Rogers’ first marriage, lived in Mackinnon Hall on South Green until he was nine months old. From there Rogers and Colter moved to Atkinson House, where both Kolby and Caleb were born. They’ve lived in their Wray apartment for five years.
And they don’t seem to mind much, either. In fact, Colter didn’t realize he lived on a college campus until he was 10, Rogers said.
Rogers’ sons are advanced mathematically and use bigger, more mature words in context, which she attributes to growing up around young adults. But sometimes these students don’t understand that a family can live in the residence halls.“The first time (students) see a kid on campus, they’ll just stare,” Rogers said.
The boys enjoy living on campus because it offers perks their friends in regular houses don’t have. Kolby said he enjoys their huge backyard because there are a lot of places for them to ride their bikes. The boys also love riding their motorized and manual scooters around the greens.
All three enjoy having a store close to their home (Nelson Market), and Colter likes the catwalk on South Green because if it wasn’t there, they’d have to go upstairs to get to their house, he said. They also love to play flashlight tag outside during OU’s school breaks.
Rogers will borrow a projector from Wray House to show movies theater-style on their living room wall. The boys also “love the fact that we have a vending machine in our house,” she said.
Take the good with the bad
Jenny Hall-Jones, assistant director for resident life for East Green, doesn’t live in a dorm — she lives next to one.Hall-Jones lives in an apartment attached to Jefferson Hall on East Green, but the apartment has no connection to the inside of the building. She said her living situation is classified as “live-on,” whereas RCs would be considered “live-in” because they actually live inside the dorm.
Hall-Jones has two boys: Casey, 9; and Bryan, 6. Both also were born and raised in the residence halls. She previously lived in Wray House but moved into Jefferson when her sons were 4 and 1, respectively. Hall-Jones’ job doesn’t require that she live on campus, but she thinks it’s a positive environment to raise children.
“There’s something about having the spirit of the college atmosphere,” Hall-Jones said.
When the boys learned how to ride bicycles, a group of students hanging out on the green cheered them on. If Bryan were to fall and skin his knee, she likes that a lot of adults are around to check if he’s OK.
“For the most part, the kids are used to it and it’s just normal for them. It’s normal for them to have 250 neighbors,” Hall-Jones said.
But it’s not always easy to live in the dorms. When her sons were babies, Rogers said it was frustrating. She didn’t want the boys’ crying to disturb neighbors or for the residents’ noise level to bother her children. Students influence them in bad ways sometimes, too, Rogers said. All three of her boys know all of the swear words, and Colter learned how to give a wedgie at age 4.
A big thing for Flowers, the RC in Martzolff House, is whether her son affects her residents. She makes the effort to ask her neighbors about the noise, but no one’s complained, she said. Meetings sometimes are difficult to schedule around her job, school and spending time with Ben. In the final stage of her doctorate in higher education and administration, Flowers has to balance her responsibilities.
“I have to make the effort, especially on the weekends, to spend the time (with Ben),” she said.Hall-Jones said her children aren’t old enough really to pick up on any “bad influences” from the students, but she and her husband try to shelter them from swear words. She never says anything to the students, though, because “we’re kind of invading their space,” she said.
Life as a... a resident coordinator
When Jenny Hall-Jones’ youngest son Bryan, now 6, was in preschool, his teacher instructed them to draw a picture of their house. Bryan drew a building with “a million” windows, which confused the teacher.
Later, Hall-Jones had to explain that their house is actually a residence hall.
Resident coordinators live in residence halls and care for the students in their hall, said Judy Piercy, vice president for student affairs and director of resident life and off-campus living. RCs enhance students’ college experiences through education beyond the classroom by providing programs and resources.
People in similar positions around the country raise children on campus. Piercy has noticed that children raised on campus become very comfortable and seem to have great socialization skills. Staff members must realize that living in the dorm “comes with the territory.”
“When a staff member takes these jobs, they fully understand that their family and they live there,” Piercy said. “It’s really a personal choice a family has to make.”
Jen Flowers, resident coordinator of Martzolff House, said many students don’t understand that a dorm is an RC’s home the entire year — not just while school is in session. As a perk of the job, apartments, amenities and a quarterly allotment of Bobcat Cash for meals are included with the position, Piercy said. RCs’ also receive a yearly salary, which begins at $28,000.
Jenny Hall-Jones, assistant director of resident life for East Green, lives in a two-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment adjacent to Jefferson Hall with her husband and two young sons. Students think RCs live in dorms, she said, but it’s really an apartment that just happens to be next to a college housing complex.
Wray House RC Wendy Rogers lives in a two-bedroom apartment that is part of her building. She and her husband converted half the garage on the lower level into their bedroom and laundry room. Her three boys share a bedroom and use the second as a play room. It also has a bathroom, kitchen, small dining area and office.
It can be confusing to tell someone that your family lives in a residence hall. Hall-Jones said people don’t even realize that section of Jefferson Hall is an apartment and many students don’t quite comprehend that professionals live on campus, especially those living in residence halls with children.
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