So, are you still trying to make your decisions, newbies?  I admit that our weather is… special… but WM is really awesome, especially our WM community.  I’m sure you have heard about the community a lot already (if you haven’t I can guarantee you will) but it truly makes us unique.  A big part of your early community here will be your freshman hall – really take advantage of these early friendships you make.  They will stay with you.  Also, just as importantly, take advantage of your RA.  They are here to help you transition to college life – whether it is academic or social.  If you have a question or there is an activity you want to do, ask your RA!  We don’t want you to fumble – we want you to love it here as much as we do!

So, once again, welcome!

Look outside: flowers are growing and students are peeping out of their rooms and Swem like the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz, uncertain whether the sunshine is a reality or another cruel joke from the Williamsburg weather gods. It’s April, and while April brings the the possibilities of lounging on the Sunken Gardens or chatting with your friends on the terrace, it also brings two less healthy changes of behavior. The first is the acknowledgment of innumerous final project that you know you should be working on but can’t seem to find the motivation for. Students are burnt out, and unfortunately it takes a lot of energy and focus to get through this last month of schoolwork. That means a lot of excess stress, less sleep, and general unhappiness. The second is the desire to live it up in the remaining days before you part from your friends for this summer. This means more drinking and more careless drinking, and may include other risky behaviors (there’s no denying that some students are going to think participation in 4/20 is a grand idea). As a student, you may be experiencing some of this yourself, but as an RA you’ve almost certainly seen it on your hall or heard of what seems like an unusually high number of write-ups. As an RA, it’s also your responsibility to try and meet your residents’ needs as best you can, and these are needs. Stress relief programs, or advice on how to focus and study more effectively will help the first group I described. Mocktails, a visit from the WM police (did you know you can have them perform a fake arrest?), or other information on drug and alcohol safety may help the second. Check out the Programming board in the PRC (the one next to the poster printer) for a cool programming idea on Alcohol education.

Remember that you can always browse the programming database for inspiration from other RA’s past programs or check out the Programs at Your Fingertips that are next to the Bulletin Boards in a Bag in the PRC.

For the board, you will simply need to print out the image of the challenge. There are several versions for April. The image embedded in this post is just one example. You can find more by doing a Google search—“April Photo A Day Challenge.” Your residents can refer to the board to figure out the theme of the photo for the day. For example, if the first day is “fun,” one of your residents might decide to take picture with you (because you are such a fun RA!) or of one of your programs (because your programs are the best!), or of them frolicking across the Sunken Gardens. After they take pictures, have them send them to you. On a weekly or biweekly (twice a week) basis, you can print them out and post them on the board for everyone to see! That way, the board is evolving throughout the month. If necessary, you can easily change the days on the challenge so that they correspond with the first day that your board is up. It will be fun to see each resident’s different interpretation of the theme.

With that, I think we all need a pep talk! We are a month away from finals and this is the time when things start to get tough. We must not forget, though, that we are William and Mary students and we have done this at least once before. I hope this video makes you smile and puts a little pep in your step. As kid president says, “We were made to be awesome!” Good luck with

Did you ever have that fear when you were a little kid that noone was going to come to your birthday party? Maybe you feared that even your own parents would forget. That’s how it feels when you put hours of work into a program and then nobody shows- not even your own roommate. And instead of just being a five year old nightmare, this time it’s for real. Suddenly the 30 cupcakes you baked and had to resist eating don’t taste so good.

Unfortunately, this scenerio may be all too familiar for upperclassmen RAs, and especially RAs of apartment-style housing. Programs serve the purpose of building and educating a community, but in order for them to work, you need to have residents who are interested in being a part of that community. Otherwise, they’ll just grab some food and run, maybe making some awkward small talk along the way.

The good news? You’re not the first ones to have this problem, and Brian McGowan, a Residence Life Coordinator from Rutgers University has created  a six-step approach to programming specially designed for aparment RAs. If you’re not an apartment RA, don’t stop reading though– these steps have some great ideas for other RAs as well.

1. Collaborate: You’re not alone when it comes to programming, so why try to go at it alone? Collaborating with other RAs, hall council, organizations, or offices on campus both divies up the work of planning for a program and increases attendence by drawing people who are associated with the partner organization

2. Relate: Realize that the people who choose to live in apartments are different from those who live in halls. Find out why your residents decided to live in apartment-style housing and program to that. Is it because of the extra parking? Do a car maintence program. Because of the kitchens? Do a cooking program. Because they’re sophomores and it was the only place they *could* live? They’re probably missing the hall atmosphere, so maybe try a passive program that encourages them to meet the other people in their building (like ghosting, or apartment buddies).

3. Educate: Unlike many other RAs, educational programs may actually be some of your most successful programs rather than the bane of your existence. Those people living in Ludwell aren’t going to want to walk all the way to the Career Center, so see if you can bring someone from the Career Center to them. The seniors living in the Randolph Complex and Tribe Square are freaking out about how to survive in the real world, and so a representative from the Career Center could be helpful to them as well, or perhaps a budget workshop to help them learn how to manage that grad school dept (and FAFSAs and tax returns, and all that other stuff they need to learn how to do, if they haven’t already). Think to yourself “If I were a busy upperclassman, what would I think was useful enough to take time out of my schedule to go to?” and you’ll be golden.

4. Advertise: Things people don’t pay attention to: bulletin boards in stairwells. Location of most of the public and RA posting boards in our apartment housing: stairwells. What this means for you is that you’ll have to be more creative in your advertising as well as more aggressive. If you think you’ve advertised so much that even the maintence people know exactly where and when your program is, advertise more. Put it in e-mails, post it on Facebook (be really annoying and friend all your residents, then post it on their walls), put it in the apartment/hall council email, put flyers on the door hanger of every single door, heck, maybe even create a catchy YouTube video about it. Most importantly, start advertising as early as possible so that residents can put the program in their calendars before they get booked up.

5. Timing: You may have a stellar program idea, but it’s not going to be successful if it’s at a time when no one can come. Try to avoid programming around midterms or days of major campus events (this will help you as well, since who really wants to plan a program when they have 3 exams to study for?) and take into account what the whether might be like when picking a location (program outside as much as possible during late spring and early fall in order to attract passers-by). Of course, also pick a time of day that makes sense for what you’re doing. If you’re serving a meal, choose dinner time. Educational programs should go right after dinner so that they’re not an interruption to homework, and dessert programs go later so that they are that perfect homework break snack.

6. Evaluate: After you have your program, don’t just move onto the next thing. Think about what worked and what didn’t so that you can adjust as necessary for next time. And don’t forget to put it in the programming database as a suggestion for other RAs.

10. Make a snow angel.

9. Make hot chocolate.

8. Play board games.

7. Have a pajama party.

6. Go to the Blue Talon for free hot chocolate.

5. Go to Bruster’s for a free scoop of ice cream.

4. Work on your favorite coloring book.

3. Host a book club.

2. Stay warm.

1. Make a snowman and put a hat on him and watch him run around and play with him and be nice to him.

0. Look at pictures of cats.

Source: http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/09/25/expand-your-mind-7-simple-steps-to-thinking-outside-the-box/

1. Leaf rubbings seem lame but they’re actually awesome

2. The tactile sensation of using your fingers to paint a tree, a dinosaur, or just a whole slew of colorful ridiculousness is incredibly soothing. Until you consider how much money you could make from that finger painting if you were a famous artist.

3. Make paper snowflakes and string them together to decorate rooms or the lounge.

4. Play with play-doh. If you want your residents to be able to keep their play-doh, creations, here’s a recipe for homemade play-doh*

5. Make lava-lamps. Because lava lamps should never go out of style. Ever.*

6. Bubbles! See who can blow the biggest bubble.

7. Make marshmallow/ pom-pom shooters and hit each other with them.*

8. Make and race paper airplanes

9. Play board games. The new Chutes and Ladders is particularly recommended because it has pictures like this:

10. Watch your favorite cartoons. Rugrats is on Netflix, but there are also plenty of sites where you can watch the Nickelodeon classics for free.

So there you have it, 10 ideas that will make boys and girls, freshman and seniors, remember how awesome it was to be little and wonder whose brilliant idea it was to be a double major, write an honors thesis, or just come to W&M in general.

*designates activities for which not all of the necessary materials are available from the PRC.

Critical to your creation of an interactive board is your awareness of the fact that a board that can be manipulated by your residents also serves as a program. In some cases, it is an extension of a program. Even better! You must also be aware of the crafts that we have in the PRC that can be used to make your board more interactive. Here are the top 15 interactive mediums (in no particular order):

1. Velcro
2. Laminate
3. Binder clips
4. Yarn
5. Envelopes
6. Clothes pins
7. Chalk
8. Markers/Sharpies
9. Push pins
10. Sandwich bags
11. Brass fasteners
12. Rubber bands
13. Paper clips
14. Chart/table (made with Publisher)
15. Magnetic strips

I hope that list has gotten the juices flowing. In the off chance that it didn’t, let me share with you a couple ways you would combine these interactive mediums to make your residents do a double-take as they are walking through your hall. I am going to use yarn, a brass fastener, push pins, and a marker. The broad purpose of this board/program will be to strengthen the community that is forming on your halls.

Ask all of your residents to send you a picture of them that they wouldn’t mind being on the board. You could also use their Facebook profile pictures. Put all of the pictures (including one of you) on the board. Make a spinning wheel with a brass fastener. On the wheel there should be a place with each person’s name on it. Orient the spinner on the board. When your residents interact with the board, they will spin the spinner and land on the name of the person that they should try to make a connection with. The connection might be that they both have a younger brother or play the same sport. Using the marker (that can also be attached to the board using yarn or Velcro), the residents can write what the connection they made was.  Using the yarn and push pins, you residents can connect their pictures. Use the push pins to keep the yarn in place. The program extension would be to encourage your residents to have a meal or hang out with the person or people they land on. For example, If Kiara lands on Maisoon, and Maisoon lands on Clay, and Clay lands on Blakely, and Blakely lands on Lauren, and Lauren lands on Kiara, then Kiara, Maisoon, Clay, Blakely, and Lauren could go on a cider walk together. This might help people who would not have hung out together otherwise to get to know each other. They would, of course, decide what they would do to hang out. You could possibly use RA funds to subsidize their hanging out.

To spark some of your own ideas, come to the PRC at some point in the next couple of weeks to play inteRAction. Do you get it? The “R” and the “A” are capitalized to stand for resident assistant! Move through the spaces and land on (an) interactive medium(s) (e.g. Velcro, push pins, etc.), a program type (e.g. survey, game, etc.), and a theme (e.g. futuristic, “pick a decade”, Charlie Brown, etc.).

All of you are about to flip your calendars to the next month. You’ve probably spent your whole life calling the upcoming month “November.” I’m here to tell you it’s true name is Movember (or at least since 2003).

The Movember idea was born in Melbourne, Australia by two mates who wondered where the Moustache (Mo) had gone. They joked about bringing it back; that ‘joke’ became a worldwide phenomena and November was renamed Movember. By 2007 Movember had taken the world by storm and 7 countries and 134,000 participated, raising $20.2 million.

Here’s the latest information about this year’s Movember from movember.com.

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in the US and around the world. With their Mo’s, these men raise vital awareness and funds for men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.

Once registered at www.movember.com, men start Movember 1st clean shaven. For the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November. Through their actions and words they raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health.

At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their gallantry and valor by either throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.

Movember is an excellent way to program for your hall. Form a team of Mo People and raise money to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG Foundation. Throw a Mo Party (look for details on the website) and the people behind Movember will send you a party kit. Educate your residents about men’s health issues. Coprogram with your Hall or Apartment Council to increase awareness and visibility of your programs. Have a Movember competition awarding the best Mos and the best fundraisers.

1. Know where to go. In many states, you will not be allowed to vote if you show up at the wrong polling place. Worse still, you may be given a provisional ballot to vote on that will later be thrown out. Your board of elections can tell you where to vote. If you can’t reach the board, a nonpartisan hotline, 1-866-OURVOTE, has a polling place locator. So does the Web site mypollingplace.com.

2. Bring proper ID. The rules vary by state. If you have a photo ID, it’s wise to bring it, just in case. Too often, poll workers demand ID when it is not required, or demand the wrong ID. If you do not know the law in your jurisdiction, you should check your local board of elections Web site.

3. Review the sample ballot before voting. Ballots are often confusing, and their designs can change considerably from election to election. And as the infamous “butterfly ballot” showed in 2000, a poorly designed ballot can trick voters into choosing a candidate they did not intend. If you have questions about how to vote on your ballot, ask a poll worker or poll monitor for help.

4. Check your ballot before finalizing your vote. As we saw in 2000, if punch card chads are not punched out precisely, votes may not be counted. On electronic machines, a brush of the hand can erase or change a vote. On paper ballots, stray or incomplete marks can disqualify a vote.

5. Know your rights concerning provisional ballots. No voter can be turned away in any state this year without being allowed to vote. If there is a question about your eligibility, you must be allowed to vote on a provisional ballot, the validity of which will be determined later. But if you are entitled to vote on a regular ballot, you should insist on doing so, since a provisional ballot may be disqualified later on a technicality.

6. Know where to turn for help. If you experience problems voting, or if you see anything improper at the polls, you may want to get help. There will be nonpartisan poll monitors at many polling places. (There may also be partisan poll watchers, and it’s possible one of them may be the person objecting to your voting.) It is a good idea to bring a cellphone, and phone numbers of nonpartisan hotlines like the Election Protection program’s 1-866-OURVOTE and Common Cause’s 1-866-MYVOTE1.

7. Be prepared for long lines. In some precincts, the wait may stretch into hours. Try to get to your polling place very early in the morning, or between the before-work and after-work rushes. As long as you are in line before the polls close, you are legally entitled to vote. Do not let poll workers close the polls until you have voted.

Source: New York Times

Program Ideas

1. Walk with your residents who are registered to vote to your polling location.
2. Make a bulletin board educating your residents about the candidates.
3. Watch the third and final Presidential Debate on October 22 with your residents.
4. Watch the results come in on Election Day with your residents.
5. Put reminders on your residents’ doors as Election Day approaches.
6. VOTE!