Community Showcase: Hiram College
Written with Kyle Wolfe, Assistant Director of Residential Education
Hiram College is a small liberal arts college in Ohio. Until 2020, Hiram was collecting most of their information about students and residence life programming using Microsoft forms, disparate free form services like Wufoo forms, and old-fashioned pen and paper. Hiram made the decision to collect data from their weekly reports in a more strategic and intentional way using eRezLife and, as a result, has fundamentally changed their ability to report on their goals and principles.
Digitized Weekly Reports
Intentional data collection is fundamental to making data-driving decisions and showcasing the impact of Residence Life staff at Hiram College. When weekly reports moved to eRezLife, staff were able to fully customize their forms to collect the data that they needed not only to support their staff but also to ensure they were able to provide adequate and timely resources and funding. Weekly reports at Hiram College allow staff to report on personal information like stress levels, so supervisors can assess the impact of academics, incidents, events, and time away, for example. Data can show trends in staff teams, illustrate the difference in supervisory strategies, and provide real examples of the impact of our programs and expectations on staff. The accessibility of the data allows staff to pull information about staff well-being in an instant. In less than 5 minutes, you can see that of the last 279 weekly reports submitted, only 8 reported a stress level of a 9 or 10 on a 10 point scale. In that same 5 minutes, you can tell that all 8 cases of stress were related to academics, and you can see trends in which staff members repeatedly reported high levels of stress. This has allowed supervisors to have impactful and intentional conversations with these Resident Assistants and provide them the resources they need to help lower their stress levels.
Data-Driven Support
Accessibility to data allows you to provide support in different ways. If you’re seeing that a large number of staff members are stressed due to academics, maybe you decide to make care packages or cancel a full-staff meeting to give students more time. Perhaps you create RA study sessions, create accountability groups, or ask those staff members if there are additional resources that could be helpful.
Using that same data set, you would find that in contrast to the 2% of students who are extremely stressed, 13% are extremely relaxed. Only 2.5% mentioned COVID as a stressor in their week. So, what causes the differences amongst these staff members? What trends can you find in this information? Administrators may ask questions like:
Are the relaxed RAs from similar faculties?
Are the stressed staff members all on the same small team?
Have they completed their programming requirements for the term?
Are there any key demographic differences between the two groups?
Using Weekly Reports to Assess Demographic Trends
One of the benefits of collecting and storing this information in eRezLife is that you can pull more information to supplement the data that your staff is inputting. RAs don’t need to input their name, residence area, or even age and gender, and you still have access to that information (provided you have the right permissions). Strategically assessing the data allows us to uncover implicit bias that may exist in training and support programs as well as educate us about best practices that work.
Customize, Reiterate, Learn
Hiram College is seen as a leader in higher education for College campuses across the country. By making the leap to eRezLife and using the Residence Life Management Service to create customized forms to meet the needs of their staff and students, Hiram will gain valuable insight about their staff, how to support them, and what is needed to create an engaging environment that supports staff well-being and excellence.
To learn more about weekly reports and our all-inclusive Residence Life Management services, click here.
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