What Do We Want for Our Resident Assistants?

Above all else, we desire to support and encourage student's education as whole persons.

To believe in the value of a Christian liberal arts education is to believe in the value of a holistic education for its' students-an education of mind and character. One cannot underestimate the significant role such an education can play in transforming lives and putting people on a trajectory that will yield, over time, a certain kind of person, characterized by a range of valuable knowledge and skills, as well as positive and humble attitudes.

The Biola University Residence Life Program exists for its students with the express purpose of influencing their holistic education. And so, our vision must embrace those individuals it seeks to help educate, especially the student leaders. The hopes and aspirations of the Residence Life program at Biola University are hopes and aspirations for its' resident students, especially it’s Resident Assistants.

Therefore, we aspire to be a program of excellence so that we might produce people of excellence.

Students who successfully finish their Resident Assistant experience should . . .

1. Possess interpersonal competence that enables them to listen respectfully, ask questions thoughtfully, self-disclose appropriately, give feedback honestly and sensitively, participate in dialogue, work with a group and be characterized by tolerance and appreciation of differences.
2. Be possessed of core convictions and commitments for which they claim ownership, which they can thoughtfully defend, and to which they can be true in a world of competing moral and spiritual visions.
3. Have a conscience of student behavioral issues particular to communal living and a developed means to facilitate such growth in the lives of others.
4. Be active contributors to the healthy vibrant life of a community wherever they find themselves in their life's journey.
5. Have a working framework and process to integrate their educational experience as a R.A. with their development as people, with a particular emphasis on tangibly connecting their beliefs with their behavior in their lives, both as a college student and beyond.
6. Have a developing self-awareness, with an ability to reflect on and practice their faith with an aim to lifelong learning and service as a Christian leader.
7. Have it as a life's goal to seek after relationships with people further down the road of life, who not only model a worldview and communal life that is in complement to their own, but will continue to effectively empower?them to reproduce these same characteristics in others as they themselves become mentors to others.