Kate Wofford Hall (Part 3)

After RD training when the RA's showed up, I finally met my girls, and everything clicked from that moment on. I had three incredible veteran RA’s who knew Wofford Hall inside and out and the greatest new RAs who were just as lost as I was about the job. Kenyatta, Chrissy, Jenny, Amanda, Jessica, Sarah N./Teresa, Sarah D., and Melissa (I can still name everyone in floor-order!) made up my staff team. There are certain things that stick out in my mind about meeting each one of them: for example, Sarah D. reported for duty wearing a bikini top and jean shorts. Jenny kept calling me Miss Lussier and said “yes m’am” and “no m’am” to me (even though I am only a year older than her). I walked onto the 2nd floor and thought someone had ransacked Chrissy’s room because her stuff was such a mess you couldn’t even see the floor (it didn’t change the whole year!). I then walked off the elevator and onto the 5th floor and caught Jessica kissing her boyfriend.

Our first big activity was to compete with the other staff teams in a scavenger hunt during RA training. We had to find each item and take a picture with it. The staff team that had not only the most correct pictures but the most interesting pictures would be the winner. We decided to take the huge portrait of Kate Wofford that hung in our front hall (a major piece of school property!) and haul it all around campus to include in each of our pictures. Not only did that experience bond us, but we won! That began a year of weekly staff meetings that we always made so much fun, crazy residents, nightly walk-throughs (for those RA's that actually did them!), lots of laughing, a little bit of crying, crazy residents, lousy pay for all the work we actually had to do, parties in an empty 8-story hall after the residents left for Christmas and summer, more crazy residents, fun with the Richardson staff (our next door neighbors – the 400 resident boys’ dorm!), bulletin boards, broken elevators, marijuana busts (I have a nose for it after living in that hall for 2 years!), sorry desk staff, hall socials, the birth of the KWH sorority, and yes, more crazy residents.

After that year, Sarah N., Sarah D., Jessica, Melissa, and Chrissy all graduated and moved on, and we gained Crystal, Mel, a different Jessica, Kerry, and Mary. Although nothing could come close to that first year, we created a whole new year of memories with the new staff. I will never be able to explain how important these girls were and still are to me. My graduate school years were definitely different than most because of my involvement with Residence Life, but to this day, I am so thankful for having those girls in my life. I love it that we still share a very special relationship and are still so involved in each others’ lives. For the next two days, I have invited some of them to be guest bloggers to share with you some of their favorite memories from Wofford Hall. I could never begin to relay all of the crazy, outlandish, unbelievable moments and situations we shared over those two years, so I thought it would be fun to have them help! Tune in tomorrow!!!