Hall Director Testimonials

Andrew Nash	When I was job searching, I had no experience in residence life. My GA position was in student activities, advising students and planning big events. Fortunately, the Hall Director position at TCU allows me the opportunity to use these strengths as an advisor for the Hall Crew Association! This partnership with TCU Student Activities allows me to work every day with a group of volunteer students that love planning programs and events. I have developed my advising and programming skills in this part of my job, and I’ve also become a better supervisor to my RAs because of it.
Chelsea Tirrel	My graduate assistantship was in Student Leadership and Community Engagement. In holding that position, I was responsible for developing and facilitating curriculum around leadership development, programming to address critical leadership capacities and engaged service learning, and creating experiences that empowered students to be active local and global citizens. As you can imagine, that isn’t exactly parallel to housing and residence life, but many of those aspects translate into the work I do here at TCU! For example, each staff meeting I work to develop a particular leadership capacity for my RAs. Whether that’s understanding group dynamics or gauging where they are on the leadership identity scale, they have the opportunity to actually see how they’re being change agents in their roles. As for Community Engagement, I created a collateral experience for my RA staff where someone is responsible for organizing service efforts that residents can participate in. I’ve also worked to create a partnership with the Office for Community Engagement which, once fleshed out, would allow residence halls to actively address community needs in the Fort Worth area. As we explore and deepen that relationship, HRL will have the ability to really live out its philosophy of community renewal.
Kaitlin Page	My journey to becoming a Hall Director is not the traditional path. It’s been filled with lots of twists and turns that have provided me with a spectacular frame of reference for this sometimes challenging position. When I graduated from Coastal Carolina University I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do. After getting experience in that field I quickly changed my mind. I was fortunate to get a job working for my alma mater in Athletics Marketing. I started pursuing my master’s degree online through Charleston Southern University. Since I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do I chose a degree that was general enough to provide me with skills for many areas. I now have a Master’s of Arts in Organizational Leadership. Once I decided on the field of student affairs I started to seek experiences in my position in athletics that would provide me with skills that would be transferable. Working with student athletes and supervising marketing student workers provided me with an opportunity to practice leadership theories I was learning about in my classes. This process allowed me to discover what I wanted my leadership style to be. This has transferred in to the way that I supervise my staff and how I interact with my residents. Coming from a field outside of Student Affairs has given me an incredible opportunity to connect with students in ways I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise.
Jen Sepulveda	My graduate assistantship was in the office of New Student Orientation and Enrollment. In my role my primary responsibilities included overseeing evening programs during our two day orientation, assisting with Orientation Leader training, Orientation enrollment, and creating a mentorship program for first generation students. I have a strong passion for first generation college students and did my graduate research in that area. I was afforded a great opportunity to use that research to start something that would benefit that population at my university. Through that experience, along with my experience in my internships, I was able to gain some transferable skills that I use in my current role today! Planning evening programs was like planning giant “all hall” events. Training orientation leaders in customer service and the value of getting to know people on a personal level is the same type of training that we provide for our RAs here at TCU. Understanding the numbers of registration is similar to running the administrative work behind the scenes of a residential community. You always have to be in the know about where people are and how to get them through certain systems. Managing and planning logistics of people, timing, and places is very similar to running a housing move in day. Many collaborations with campus departments to make sure our parents and students have the best experience possible! My work with First2Go (our first generation mentorship program) allowed me to build relationships with faculty and staff across the university and understanding their function in the university. Those skills helped me be more comfortable with reaching out to campus partners within my role. As relational as TCU is, collaborating with campus partners is in our day to day role. Understanding how their department serves our residents and understanding how we can both benefit the resident is of the upmost importance. A great example of this has been working closely with our first year experience department here at TCU. I am able to collaborate with their office to serve as the housing liaison with some of the projects that take residential staff involvement or residential space for programs that are put on by their department. I am also been able to work within a first year community during my time at TCU. This experience has brought me much joy as I know first year students have always been a passion of mine.