Parents & Families

An Open Letter to Parents & Guardians from Residential Life

We have high hopes that living in our residence halls will be a positive experience for your student.  At the University of New Hampshire, we place a high priority on offering individual contact with our professional staff.  Each of our halls has a full-time Residence Hall Director (RHD) who lives in the building.  The RHD typically has already earned their Master’s degree in a field that prepares them to specialize in dealing with the growth and development of college-aged students.  The Hall Director and the undergraduate Resident Assistant (RA) staff in the building will reach out to your student in an effort to enhance their experience at UNH.  They will offer a wide variety of social and educational opportunities right in the residence hall.

CHOICES. . . A word that we believe best symbolizes college life.  Our students will be bombarded with CHOICES that only they can make. CHOICES will determine the extent of their happiness and success at the University of New Hampshire.  These are exciting, but sometimes very scary and complex choices, some of which your student may have never had to make on their own.  Among those:  Am I going to take classes that are easy or that make me work harder than I ever have before?  How much am I going to study each night or week and how will I structure that?  What sexual choices might I make?  Am I going to use alcohol illegally or perhaps illegal drugs?  How much am I going to share with my parent (s) or guardian(s)?

Many of you are used to being intimately involved in observing, discussing, and even guiding your student’s choices.  It may be a temptation of both you and your student to continue in the exact same relationship as related to CHOICES.  Some involvement is certainly healthy and important.  We hope that you will join with us in helping your son or daughter gain the decision making independence that should be occurring at this stage of their life.  Crafting a meaningful but perhaps different type of communication pattern will serve as an exciting challenge.

As a staff, we also face our own set of challenges.  Misbehavior of students, though committed by a relative few, can cause great havoc for the majority of our community.  We make it our mission to create an environment that supports the academic mission of the university.  We view living in a residence hall here as a privilege, not a right.  Since we do not force any student to live on campus, we have no hesitation about expecting those who do choose to live here to follow our community expectations.  We are particularly strict when it comes to using or selling illegal drugs or hosting a situation in a room where illegal alcohol activity occurs.  Hearing Officers in the Office of Community Standards often evict such violators on their first offense.  My hope is that you will reinforce our expectations. We will certainly do that when your student arrives.

Again we believe it is all about CHOICES.  CHOICES MATTER.  Fortunately, the overwhelming number of choices made by most students serve them well.  We will do all we can to guide and educate your student in a positive and growth-producing manner.  Please feel free to contact our office if you wish to discuss any matter pertaining to your student. Our office phone is (603) 862-2268.

Residential Life Staff

Residential Life strives for all residential students to feel safe and valued in their community. Further, we want students to engage in open dialogue with others as a means of developing a greater understanding among community members. Students will examine and understand their own privileges, biases, and how action/inaction plays out in their community. In the residence halls, we offer programs to explore the many aspects of diversity, and we also weave our commitment to inclusion and equity into conversations, bulletin boards, passive programs, trips to campus programs, and by also challenging bias and hate incidents.  Being engaged in our diverse community is uplifting, challenging, and an important part of being a student at UNH.

Our Inclusion and Equity Education Learning Outcomes:

1. Students will increase awareness about social identity and bias.
2. Students will expand their comfort zone by engaging with others from different backgrounds.
3. Students will visibly show support to someone in an underrepresented group.
4. Students will confront another student about their choice of biased or hurtful language and behavior towards others.

Examples of Inclusion and Equity Education in Our Residence Halls:

• Conversations with residents about identity development

• Culture Nights
• “Ally” campaign
• Invisible Knapsack (privilege article)
• Documentary series
• Safe Zones Programs
• The Hungry Planet
• Newsletter articles by hall directors, RAs or students

Other helpful campus links:

• Diversity at UNH
• Admissions
• The Beauregard Center

Our staff play an active role in encouraging students to make decisions that are relevant to succeeding emotionally and academically while in college. We want students to take an active, conscious, self-directed approach to making positive choices that contribute overall to healthy living while in college. Our staff specifically focuses on helping students understand the negative impact alcohol and drugs can have on their college career while also encouraging students to work in achieving balance in their physical and emotional health.

Sample Healthy Living Programs and Initiatives in our Halls

• Cup sizes programs to help students understand how much an actual serving of alcohol is.  Residence Hall students are involved on hall intramural teams. These teams compete with other teams from around campus.
• Massage and stress relief
• Meditation
• Reality Check – a myth-busting program that uses student perception and reality to show that "the party isn’t as big as you think"
• Yoga
• Sleeping well
• Simulated exercised (like “Beer Goggles” to help students understand alcohol impairment)
• Weekend non-alcoholic social programming
• Safe Sex/Healthy choices
• Spa Nights

Our goal is for all residential students to experience a sense of belonging and social connectedness by promoting active engagement and leadership in their communities. Involvement is strongly related to retention and social and intellectual development. Students will:

• Learn the value and responsibility of being part of a community.
• Engage in their residential community and/or the UNH community.
• Choose to be a more active leader in formal and informal ways in the campus life.

A few of our favorite Involvement efforts

Hall Council
Every hall has a representative group of students that provides a forum for students to develop leadership skills and plan great activities for the community. Hall Directors advise these groups on a weekly basis.  Students are encouraged to be active members of their community through service, bystander responsibility, and reaching out of their comfort zones.  Want to get involved in Hall Council?  E-mail the hall director in the hall you plan to live in.

Community Service Projects

Each hall will have at least 2 opportunities for hall-sponsored community service. Some halls have long-standing relationships with local agencies where they provide on-going service opportunities. It's a great way to establish links with the community and have students meet other students in their hall

Our goal is for students to participate in their academic lives in reflective, intentional, and proactive ways aimed at maximizing academic achievement, learning and career development.Our staff encourages students to explore academics and career development resources and to seek out opportunities, both in and out of the classroom, that complement their academic and career goals. Students will:

• Learn how to maximize their academic achievement at UNH
• Students will use academic-related resources or services
• Students will engage in the career planning process

Sample Academic Programs/Initiatives in our Halls 

• Students will use academic-related resources or services
• Students will engage in the career planning process
• Study Bucks/Incentives for studying
• Support UNH campus-wide Dialogue topics.
• Designating lounges as study space
• Integrating Academic programs into Floor Wars
• Bringing faculty into the halls to discuss contemporary issues
• Faculty dinners in the halls
• Passive education in newsletters, bulletin boards, and around the hall
• Recognition opportunities for students who do well academically
• Themed living communities that collaborate with academic departments/resources
• Residential Learning Communities (RLCs) for first-year students in similar majors who live together
• Training RA and RHDs so they understand the need to take an interest in students’ academics

Examples of how we implement Academic Identity in our Residence Halls

• Each RHD is required to meet with students who are in academic difficulty in the beginning of each semester, to assist them in addressing and improving their academic performance.
• Academic success and related topics are regularly highlighted in Hall Newsletters and Bulletin Boards. Students are frequently highlighted for their academic interests and success.
• Our department frequently has programs involving faculty panels, informal discussions with faculty, presentations by the Study Abroad, Domestic Exchange and Internship offices on campus.
• We measure this area on our Residential Life survey and develop action plans as needed. Sample questions asked are… Hall staff have emphasized the importance of making the most of my academics at UNH.