I agree that your child should report this, but not just to the RA. RAs are students. They have very little power and authority, no matter how well-trained and mature they are, and they have only slightly more life experience than the students they are “RA-ing.” Mental health problems are above their pay grade and need to be reported to the first-year dean. Telling the RA is important, but it’s more of a courtesy than anything else. Safety issues, which this very likely is, need to be handled by people who have the power to do something.
@bopper I love that book. That’s exactly what I thought of when I started reading some of these posts. Basically people are too busy worrying about offending someone . Trust your gut, it’s rarely wrong.
Don’t wait until the next incident. Do it now. It will not go away. It will escalate.
If that’s the case, why is your child still rooming with this person?
Please, please take this seriously and have your S moved NOW. It is not a good idea to be “waiting for the other shoe to fall” or wonder what next he may do that will cause his room mate to fly into a rage. He just needs to go to the housing director and say he does not feel safe and that 9 of the 10 behaviors for unhealthy anger are evidenced by his room mate & provide the article.
This is one of the main reasons I prefer colleges to have at least one grownup in each dorm. Not RAs, grownups; grad students at a minimum. I’ve seen students report intimidating behavior by a resident or guest…who proceeds to intimidate the undergrad RA. 18-year-olds need grownups around. They are not ready for all this.
I agree and I would expect that the housing director is an ADULT, not a student. If he’s not, the head of residential life. This is scary stuff and is not what our kids should have to be dealing with as “part of their college experience.” When I was a student, our RAs were grad students in psychology. Fortunately, I’m not aware of us having issues like the OPs, but mental health issues can show themselves first in college and worsen as academic pressure increases (like finals, projects, midterms, etc.)
All undergrad RAs are supervised by full-time residential staff at some level. Either they are directly supervised by a full-time residential staff member, or they are supervised by a part-time/paraprofessional graduate student who is supervised by a full-time residential staff member. I can’t think of a single college at which RAs are going it alone or are unsupported by full-time professional staff who are trained. The housing director is certainly a professionally trained staff member with years of experience. The director of residential life at my former graduate institution is a woman with several years of experience in res life AND she has a background in mental health counseling.
Advocating “skipping” the RA to go straight to someone else, like housing or the dean, is not necessarily the right move. Certain problems may indeed be above the RA’s “pay grade” - but part of RA training is knowing which of all the intricate offices and people who are on campus at all hours of the day or night who are actually responsible for helping students in times of specific crises, and can get support to students faster than a student can probably get themselves. The RA knows how to get in touch with the on-call dean, the 24-hour nurse, the rape crisis hotline, the 5 nearest emergency rooms, the appropriate police precinct…they also know how to defuse a situation in the short-term and to wait for the next level of response.
For example, when I was a residential hall director as a graduate student, my on-duty phone number was not public knowledge. I could only be reached by an RA during my on-duty hours. Any student could’ve knocked on my door for help, but few of the students in my building knew I was the graduate hall director, even though I never hid the fact and introduced myself to all of the students in all of buildings I oversaw in the beginning of the school year (and regularly sent out emails, and had office hours, AND was searchable in the directory. People were just way more familiar with their RA). But I was precisely the person who should have been called if people were throwing things at 2 am, because within 15 minutes that would initiate a chain of events that could potentially get a student in psychiatric care *that night/i. But in order to get me…you had to call an RA.
Furthermore, going directly to housing wouldn’t have helped, because housing and residential life were separate offices. Housing was responsible for the physical rooms and amenities. So housing would’ve had to contact the right person in res life, which may have taken a couple days…And honestly, public safety/security is often going to refer you straight back to the RA/res life. For example, at my university, if a student called public safety to say they were unsafe in their room due to their roommate, guess who public safety would’ve called? Me. (Or my RA. Who would’ve called me.) We might have gone over together (public safety usually accompanied during potential mental health crises) but they were just there for support; the issue was handled by residential life.
The RA is always the right person to go to, because even if s/he can’t solve her/himself it that night, s/he has access to a broad range of services/networks that can help him/her solve it along with or for your student. Nobody is expecting a college junior to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, which is why on-call structures exist. Right now at most colleges across the country there are dozens (hundreds?) of deans who makes six figures who are holding old Verizon flip phones with the Most Annoying Ringtones in the event something truly heinous happens on campus…but the way to reach them is if the RA gets called first.
"All undergrad RAs are supervised by full-time residential staff at some level. "
Yeah, and at some colleges, there are adults living in every entryway, and that’s better.
“The RA knows how to get in touch with the on-call dean, the 24-hour nurse, the rape crisis hotline, the 5 nearest emergency rooms, the appropriate police precinct…”
I’m chuckling over here. YOU knew all those things, which is awesome, but all RAs do not. Do you really think undergrad RA is the only profession in the world that is free of incompetent people?
“The RA is always the right person to go to, because even if s/he can’t solve her/himself it that night, s/he has access to a broad range of services/networks that can help him/her solve it along with or for your student.”
I can’t imagine why you would have this level of confidence about every RA at every college in the country. If there’s a safety issue with my kid, I’m talking to an adult with some power to fix it. The RA may be a great way to figure out who the right person is, or they may be worse than useless and stand in the way. Some may blame you for provoking the crazy roommate’s rages. Maybe the RA is part of the problem on that hall.
Let’s just say I’ve been there firsthand at a college where there really weren’t any adults in charge – “self-government” was the word of the day. We called public safety to report our hallmate’s abusive boyfriend. The RAs were scared of this girl and her boyfriend, so they were hiding in their rooms like everybody else. There should have been an ADULT around to deal with that.
The RA in my daughter’s dorm last year was a sophomore. She was a strong, forthright person who had been very well trained, but if I had a child in the OP’s situation, I’d only mention it to the RA and go straight to a dean or another actual adult.
The RA in my co-ed dorm at CMU in 1988 was a nincompoop, and she pulled me out of bed one night to go on a date because she wasn’t sure of the guy. I was a freshman.
Interestingly, despite watching the Unbearable Lightness of Being (ugh) in my glasses and pajamas sitting between the two of them sleepy as hell because of my schedule, the ticket taker turned out to be the guy I would eventually marry (even if he didn’t notice me looking super sloppy in glasses and flannels).
I would never advise my daughters to rely on an RA.
I would request a transfer now, due to threatening behavior by roommate. Odds are a room will be available next spring at the latest (there may be a room available now). The “rage” thing is what I would key on … .that is not normal. And 9 of 10 is a serious concern.
The RA is likely a mandatory reporter and you have already contacted several people. It would seem the next step is for the roommate to be nudged into counseling, but I would want my child away from this kid first, it may trigger severe rage to find out he has been reported on.
The RA should also be reporting on any observations by other residents. And, if you know last years roommates, there may have been some non-trivial issues last year too, possibly even some altercations, which would just strengthen the case for moving this kid or moving your kid, now.
Mental health issues really need trained personnel to get involved, since seemingly innocent comments or attempts to help could cause either aggression or depression (ranging to potential self-harm).
Kid needs counseling, but your child does not have to be involved for a full year. Even smaller roommate conflicts have a way of getting worse not better …
In the meantime, have you son identify a place to stay overnight if his roommate acts irrational or threatening, if he has a friend lined up he can just go with a few items and not have to sleep with one eye open…