Greetings from the University of Louisville! I am a senior and third-year Resident Assistant. I have worked in many different residence hall environments over the past few years including: upperclassmen, freshmen, honors, and substance free. However, the environment I am working with this year is unique-I have 14 male residents on the first floor of a small freshmen hall. Knowing male communities are much different that female communities, I was worried. Most of my community building efforts have targeted females. After giving the situation much thought, I concluded that I would collaborate with other Resident Assistants in the building on floor meetings, gender un-biased programs, and communication. Looking back on this year, I am amazed at the community between all three floors in my residence hall. My experiences as an RA this year have surpassed those of past years when my primary focus was on my own floor. Here are a few tips on how you can expand your community beyond your floor:

1. Have a "sister" floor. It helps your residents feel more comfortable making friends on other floors if they see the same people at each floor meeting or program. In the past, I have paired up the males and females from the same floor. Because the building I work in this year has only 75 residents, our entire building does programs and floor meetings together.

I also make an effort to be visible on my sister floors. Residents typically feel other RAs are present on their floor only when there is a problem. I am trying to change that belief. I spend just as much time with the females on the second floor as I do with the males on the first and third floors. Building relationships with residents from other floors has been personally rewarding for me. I am excited that residents from other floors feel comfortable enough to come to me with their problems.

2. Start a building listserv. Rather than having a listserv for only my floor, I have expanded the listserv to the entire building. The purpose of this listserv is two-fold. First, it allows the Resident Assistants in our building to address all residents about upcoming programs or issues in a prompt matter. Messages do not have to be sent through another RA. Second, the building listserv shows residents that there is only a physical, not a communicational barrier between the floors.

The best way to set up this listserv is through yahoo groups. Have RAs announce at a floor meeting how each person can subscribe to the listserv, so names and confusing email addresses do not have to be collected and entered manually.

3. Have competitions between the floors. Our building has competed in penny wars to raise money for the March of Dimes WalkAmerica, and a clothes drive for the Salvation Army after Christmas Break. I offered to cook a spaghetti dinner for the floor that collected the most clothing items. If you have limited funds for rewards, you can always offer incentives within the building. For freshmen halls with restricted visitation, a great award is a weekend of unrestricted visitation hours.

4. Ask residents from other floors to help you. I joking asked a few females from the second floor if they wanted to do my bulletin boards for me this month. They actually said "yes." I was amazed at how eager the girls were to help with bulletin boards and door decorations on the first floor. Even though they do not live on my floor, they now take pride in being a part of the first floor community.

Casey Shawler
University of Louisville