Being friends with your resident assistant and vice versa is a great thing, but I personally feel that there should be some guidelines on how a RA should interact on a professional level with their friends. It is not fair to those that are not close with a RA as they are more likely to be written up or given a warning than a friend of the RA.

Favoring friends over those that you are not close with is a pretty natural thing, but if you are looking to become a RA, you should be able to differentiate between when you are the friend and when you are the RA. You should know when it is appropriate to be one or the other.

As we are all human, it is completely understandable that not everyone can keep it professional all the time and that is not what I am asking for here. I just would like for something to be set up where if a RA is close to a resident, that resident is treated just like someone who is pretty unknown to the RA.

Nothing is more annoying to a resident than to be treated differently by their RA—to be told to change his or her behavior when others aren’t asked to do so, even when they are doing the same actions as the others. Perhaps this means that stricter rules need to be in place or perhaps a higher level of observance needs to be done by superiors. I do not know the best route, but I do feel that a change should be made here.