In the past month, two residential assistants (RAs) have resigned and the Office of Residential Life has fired one RA. Residential Life accused the students of attending parties on campus and failing to report violations of conduct guidelines.

According to current RA SherAli Tareen ’05, the recent loss of three RAs brings the total number of RAs that have resigned or been fired by Residential Life to eight since the beginning of the academic year.

There were 35 RA positions at the beginning of the current academic year, according to Director of Residential Life Sarah Griesse.

For Tareen, who is in his second year as an RA, the loss of around 20 percent of the RA staff is an unusual occurrence. “There is something generally wrong here,” Tareen said.

In addition to losing their student work-study positions, Residential Life has relocated the three former RAs to new rooms on campus.

On Feb. 16, Assistant Director of Residential Life Ramon Knox held individual meetings with five RAs who were planning to return to their positions next year, said former RA Niranjan Arulpragasam ’06. After the meetings, they all decided not to reapply, Arulpragasam said.

Arulpragasam met with Knox that Monday and resigned his position on Friday of the same week.

According to Arulpragasam, Knox accused him of being a “party RA” and of not reporting enough student violations of conduct code.

Knox refused to comment on any of his meetings with RAs.

“It was like a cross-examination,” Arulpragasam said of the meeting with Knox. “He was putting words in my mouth.”

Former RAs Gillian Lavik ’05 and Rehan Noronha ’05 met with Knox on the same day and described a similar experience.

“He kind of started attacking the job I did as an RA,” Lavik said. According to Lavik, Knox alleged that she had a reputation as a partier. “That’s kind of a vague label to be assigned to,” she said.

Knox thought that RAs were looking the other way when it came time to write up incident reports, Lavik said.

“That wasn’t the case at all,” Lavik said. “I’m just not the sort of person who would look to write someone up.”

Lavik had an earlier meeting with Griesse in which Lavik said she expressed her strengths and weaknesses to Griesse as part of the process for reapplying for the RA position. At no time during this meeting did Griesse discuss or allude to specific violations of conduct, Lavik said.

“[Prior to the meeting with Knox] there was no inkling that there was any trouble at all,” Noronha said. At the meeting, Knox informed Noronha that after reviewing his files, he had some concerns about his performance as an RA, Noronha said.

“I let my record speak for myself,” Noronha said. “There was never a situation that warranted [an incident report].”

After the Feb. 16 meeting, Knox warned Noronha to stop partying on campus, Noronha said. On Friday, Feb. 28, Noronha went to an on-campus party and ran into Residence Hall Director (RHD) Jon Slock. The following week, Residential Life fired Noronha.

Knox declined to comment on his role in the process. Griesse said Residential Life was concerned about the performance of each RA who met with Knox. If an RA was asked to consider whether he or she should reapply for the position, it was because he or she had committed clear violations of the policies set forth by Residential Life and the student handbook, Griesse said.

According to Griesse, Residential Life makes RAs more accountable to standards of student conduct because they are leaders of student communities.

“[RAs] hold the responsibility of holding other students accountable,” Griesse said. “Being a student leader on campus comes with certain rights [and] responsibilities.”

According to Arulpragasam, RAs are not allowed to attend parties on campus at which students are drinking, nor are they allowed to leave their assigned buildings while on duty. Residential Life cited Arulpragasam for leaving the Wallace-30 Mac-Bigelow complex while on duty in the building to attend a friend’s party.

Arulpragasam said that leaving the building was his major violation of conduct which, along with his alleged “partier” reputation, led to a serious discussion with Knox about whether he should return as an RA. He met with Knox again on Feb. 18 and Feb. 20.

At the Friday meeting, Arulpragasam announced his resignation. “I was tired of being dragged along,” he said.

Lavik resigned for similar reasons. After meeting with Knox on Monday, she had a second meeting on Thursday.

Lavik said that she had violated policy when she went to a party in Kirk held for her 21st birthday. But, according to Lavik, this party happened after the meeting with Knox had already been scheduled.

At the Thursday meeting, she said they discussed whether she should lose her job or keep it, Lavik said.

“At that point I just had had enough … and I quit,” Lavik said. “I feel like this whole thing has been drawn out way too long.”

The three former RAs expressed concerns about the way that the meetings with the Residential Life staff members were conducted.

According to Griesse, every RA has bi-weekly meetings with his or her RHD, who is responsible for all the RAs in a particular section.

“We tell everything to the hall director,” Arulpragasam said.

The RAs who met individually with Knox agreed that the meetings, at which no RHDs were present, were unprecedented, and that a one-on-one meeting with a member of the administrative staff to discuss behavior had never happened before.

“I hadn’t talked to them [about behavior issues] since fall staff meetings,” Lavik said. According to Lavik, Slock (her RHD) had never talked to her about the issues she and Knox discussed on Feb. 16.

Arulpragasam said that his RHD, Severa Krueger, seemed to have little knowledge of his meetings with Knox.

“All she knew was that [Knox] was having a conversation with some of her staff,” Noronha said, who was also under Krueger’s jurisdiction.

“She was really nice about it all,” Arulpragasam said. “She called and tried to keep me as an RA.”

The three former RAs also called into question the timing of the Feb. 16 meetings with Knox. Residential Life scheduled the meetings just one day after the RA “carousel” event for the recruitment and assessment of students applying for the RA position.

Residential Life required all of the current RAs to attend this event in order to help evaluate and prepare the next year’s group of RAs, Noronha said. Noronha said he spent six hours preparing for and hosting the carousel.

“That was outright cruel,” Arulpragasam said. “They were using a bad RA, me, to promote Residential Life.”

Tareen said that the interaction between the administrators of Residential Life and the RAs calls into question the expectations set forth by Residential Life.

“The underlying expectations are not realistic,” Tareen said. “You have to maintain a certain level of professionalism, but not become a robot.”

Lavik said that she was interested in being an RA to be part of a community and to support students. She said that her perception of Residential Life has changed.

“This whole situation made me see their priorities as different,” Lavik said. “If their number one priority is building a community, then they need to be flexible … they take themselves too seriously.”

But to call into question the entire RA system after one difficult period is not the best idea, said Dean of Students and Vice President of Student Affairs Laurie Hamre.

“The RA position has always been a difficult one,” Hamre said.

Assistant Dean of Students Myra Garnes hosted a grievance session after the resignations and the termination with several of the RAs who were upset by the recent developments.

Garnes and Griesse are working together to develop a further dialogue with RAs who have specific complaints with the policies and practices of Residential Life.