Resident advisors Cam Turner and Ryan Victor Joseph describe life in the dorms, the first-year experience, and how they plan on embracing a hybrid semester.

 

Interview conducted by Grant Floto
#UMSocial Intern and University Of Michigan Class of 2020

 

Q: Thanks guys for joining the Welcome HoMe Podcast for U-M students. Really excited to talk to you two, especially considering that you are on ResStaff and you’re both returning RAs this fall. If you guys wouldn’t mind just starting off, tell us a little bit about yourself.

 

Ryan: My name’s Ryan, I’m an upcoming senior and I’m an RA in Alice Lloyd. My major is Biology, Health, and Society and I plan on going to med school after. I’m the President of the Native American Outreach of Michigan, which just deals with helping Native Americans across the country, especially on reservations and things like that.

 

Cam: My name is Cameron Turner, most people call me Cam. I’m a junior at Michigan. My hometown is Atlanta, Georgia. I’m pursuing a double major in Organizational Psychology and Sociology. I’m an RA also in Alice Lloyd, had the pleasure of working with these two gentlemen last year and will work again with Ryan at Alice Lloyd in the upcoming semester.

 

Q: How do you feel about coming back to campus and what are your initial thoughts?

 

Cam: This summer has been an interesting one, to say the least. I think everyone can say that because of everything going on in the world, the pandemic, the racial tensions, all the good talks that I think we’ve had about how we can protect each other, how we can serve each other have been good, and I think will lead us in a way. We’re still kind of in that transition period. There’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of unanswered questions, but I think that, at least for me, last semester when we went virtual —and I also took some summer classes because my study abroad got canceled—I definitely perform better academically in school, on campus, surrounded by kids of my age. It’s not that I don’t love my family, but it’s kind of like I’m reduced to high school again, living here with family and trying to do collegiate work that we’ve been doing.

 

So that’s been tough for me personally. I’m excited to get back. I just hope that the university is taking the necessary precautions, and I think they are. From what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen compared to other universities, especially from where I’m from down here in the south. Michigan has done a pretty good job from what I’ve seen so far. I just hope that we can come together as a student body, as a Michigan community, and actually make sure that these things work because they’re put in place so that they work. If we all are in it together and if we all do our part that it would work. I’m optimistic. I’d say cautiously optimistic. But I want to go back and I’m excited to go back.

 

Q: What about you, Ryan?

 

Ryan: I have to go with Cam on that, especially with the social aspect. I think I do well being on campus, although the transition to online learning has been … It wasn’t bad by any means, I think it’s as smooth as it could have gone. But I do like being in an environment where I have other people because when I was at home, it was hard for me to separate my learning with pleasure and doing other things, fun activities, because there was so much time to study. I had the whole day to sit around and study or do my classwork, I’d push that off or I wouldn’t do it or I would just only focus on that for the day, which is kind of unhealthy for me. When I was at school, I liked having that ‘I study at this time, then me and my friends, we have something to do at the end of that,’ whether that was playing video games or just going get something to eat. And that balance is kind of lost, especially, when I couldn’t go out and do those things especially in the beginning.

 

Nobody wanted to be next to each other for a good month or so until then, you started meeting in each other’s cars, separate cars and maybe getting drive through or something like that. But to be 100% honest, I’ve been studying the MCAP this whole summer, so I’ve been really into just studying, especially after the first month of quarantine, I’ve just been really putting myself into it. So I didn’t really think about coming back to the dorms, but recently, when all the information about coming back is starting to come through, it doesn’t seem like the greatest idea. I’ll talk to my brother about it, he’s like, “So, you’re going back to school, right? You going to be in the dorms?” And I remember my first year at Michigan, living in the dorms as a resident, my hall mates were from New York, California, Florida, those are some of the three hot spots.

 

Cam: Those three states are the worst states right now in terms of cases. I’m just going to say, I think we all do better when there’s structure in our daily lives. I think right now everything’s just been thrown off the trajectory that it’s supposed to be on, so to have some structure going back will be helpful. But I saw something on Twitter, it was like, “You have to decide between your physical well-being and your mental well-being.” And I feel like for me personally, I’m going to do what I can to protect my physical well-being, but I’ve got to get my mental right, and I think it would be best if I was back on campus.

 

Ryan: That’s pretty good. I was going to say, something I’ve learned a lot through quarantine was mental health is very much tied to your physical health. Especially being at Michigan, I call that my safe place because I’m always pretty much in a good mood and I can escape anything, especially at home that has to do with any problems at home. Not in a bad way, but just small things don’t add up as much as when I’m at Michigan. But when I’m at home, it’s a lot easier to let the mental side of my health become more apparent. I’d say that’s the good thing about quarantine– it made me realize how much more important it is to take care of yourself mentally as well as physically.

“Something I’ve learned a lot through quarantine was mental health is very much tied to your physical health.”

Cam: That physical part is so key. At Michigan, you can’t get to any class without a 10 minute walk. Or if you take a bus, sure, but you still have to walk around campus, you still have to go out. Being at home, you’re not doing that. Gyms being closed, you don’t have access to do that if you don’t have weights in your house or anything like that. So it’s been tough, and I think those things definitely go hand-in-hand and it’s something that we have to consider.

 

Q: So I’ll go ahead and consider you guys veteran RAs. What are your thoughts about returning to the dorms? How do you anticipate move-in this fall and how do you see your roles as RAs evolving?

 

Ryan: I’ll go first on this one. It’s going to be very interesting because, first, I feel like we’re going to need to get as much information about everything because I guarantee, when it comes to, especially with parents, and I don’t blame them, they’re sending their kids, and we are the direct contact. So it’s going to be hard because housing hasn’t been 100% transparent with us what they’re doing, and I’m sure they’re working super hard.

 

Cam: I’m sure they’re still figuring stuff out.

 

Ryan: Yeah. One thing I’ve learned with this pandemic is we’re all figuring this out. Usually, with these things, somebody has the answers.

 

Cam: There’s a handbook, there’s experience.

 

Ryan: We’re going through the whole process together, and it’s interesting because we have our own doubts as well. It’s not like we feel super comfortable about it and we’re ready to help the kids. We get there pretty early. Once we gain the exposure, like, “Okay, this is what dorm life’s going to look like and this is what we expect it to look like.” We can convey that to the parents, be like, “Hey, I was just as worried as you are and this is what I did. My parents were just as worried as you guys are.” And be able to connect with them in that way just so they don’t think we’re pro-them coming to school, we just want them here for whatever reason.

 

But one thing I am a little worried about is there is only so much you can control. With all the social distancing things, you saw what happened at MSU with the bar…once people got a faint sense of, “Oh, things are going back to normal again.” They went full force and it just caused them to shut down. I’m a little worried about that because I went to Ann Arbor a couple weeks ago, and the people I saw were pretty good at staying away, wearing masks, but definitely people out on the lawns, close together, big groups of people. It would usually be okay if you’re seeing each other every day and it’s the same group of people, but these are big groups of people, and I’m a little worried that that’s what happens, because usually during the first week, people go out a lot. I’m worried that there might be a couple people who go out just because they don’t think it’s going to do any harm, and then they come back. So that’s going to be a little bit hard, but at the same time, I feel like you have to go through that. It’s going to be a learning phase and we have to try something, and it sounds so awful, but I don’t know how else to … I’m glad that Michigan’s being very cautious about it compared to-

 

Cam: Georgia. Compared to my state right now.

 

Ryan: Some other states have been very lax about it and I’m privileged enough to go to Michigan where they’re educated about it and they take cautious steps and they weigh out things most of the time.

Q: Do you think that underclassmen who move into dorms this semester are at a huge disadvantage because of the circumstances or do you think that you guys as RAs will just help and do your best to facilitate a good experience? What do you think that looks like?

 

Cam: That’s kind of exactly what I was going to go into is that freshman year is so crucial … Or your first year at the school, it doesn’t have to be your freshman year, is so crucial to your development as a college student, as a person. I met Ryan my first year in college and we’re best friends to this day. Most of the people I hang out with, I met my first year in school. I think it just goes back to everyone doing their part. I actually was talking with one of the directors in housing the other day, and she brought up the point that the freshmen coming in, they won’t know any different, which is unfortunate, but it’s something to think about. They’ll go in, they’ll experience what they experience, and it won’t be our experience, but it’ll be theirs. They won’t know anything else. Which is weird to think about, especially for me, because I became an RA because I wanted to help people find their way and navigate their way through their first year of college and beyond. So it hurts me in a way because I want them to have a similar experience to what I had. Going out Welcome Week, meeting all these people in your hall, becoming best friends with people next door, going out to restaurants in Ann Arbor, stuff like that that I think we just aren’t going to be able to do.

“If there’s just one word to use, it’s just going to be different. I think everyone’s just going to need to work together and do their part.”

If there’s just one word to use, it’s just going to be different. I think everyone’s just going to need to work together and do their part, and if we can do that, I think we can be fine until we get the medical advances to do whatever needs to be done to get rid of this thing. It’s definitely going to be different and take some work. And I don’t know what that looks like and I think we’re all going to have to, unfortunately, figure it out. It may be good, it may end up being bad, but some things might need a trial and error period. I think Michigan is taking the best steps that I’ve seen of any college in terms of protecting its students.

 

The one thing I am worried about, though, is in most of the dorms, you have communal bathrooms, and being an RA last year and just being a dude, guys are gross in the bathroom, so it’s like, how are we going to monitor that? How are we going to get people motivated enough to take care of their place as it is their own or as if it could impact their health greatly? There’s a lot to think about and it’s just going to be different and it’s going to take everyone to do their part.

 

Ryan: I think that’s a good point you brought up first about each year has their own different experience. Like one of your analogies, we lived on 2nd Angel, when I was an RA for 2nd Angel, every time you’d come down, you’d say, “Oh, this is such a different vibe.”

 

Cam: It’s the culture.

 

Ryan: We had our experience and that’s in our brains a distinct experience, but my residents had their experience and it’s totally fine that there are two different experiences. It doesn’t have to be one prototype. It’s obviously nice to have it cohesive, but if they’re all super cordial with each other and that’s what their experience was, that’s amazing. But also, I bring up maybe a unique point, I’ve always noticed when I was with groups of people, whenever we had some type of adversity or some type of challenge when you’re working in a group, even in sports, the times when you become the closest, when you go through ups and downs with people.

 

Groups that only face really good times and just work when everything’s going well, it’s usually, in my opinion, they don’t understand each other on a level where we’ve got up from something. We went through stuff that usually people don’t go through. That’s how I feel about our first year in the hall. We had so many fun times and then so many times where school got super hard, but we all got through it together and we had each other. That’s what made the bond that much tighter. They were in the dorms during COVID and that could be something they bond over. It’ll be like, “Yeah, we survived that and built something tight and cohesive.”

 

Cam: The COVID class.

 

Q: On that note, I think that RAs are probably going to be more important than ever this year. Freshmen rely on RAs when everything’s great, right? But now that there’s a pandemic and there are so many unknowns and so many questions, not only with living in the dorms, but classes and everything, so I think you guys are just going to be so pivotal in making sure that they have the best possible first year that they can. What would your ideal semester look like? This can be from a classroom perspective, social, ResStaff, etc.

 

Ryan: That’s a pretty big question. Everything is online, even one of my smaller classes is online, and one of my lab classes because you have to do experiments. I think my ideal one would at least be on campus for the whole semester where we don’t have transition. Hopefully it progresses where we can start going to the dining hall and sitting down. Hopefully we can still stay on campus where it doesn’t just go back to Phase One where we have to just go back home. But whatever’s safe is what I want people to do. But the ideal semester would be hopefully we can go back to somewhat normal and by winter semester, maybe the smaller classes can definitely meet in person. I still wouldn’t maybe feel comfortable going to 300, or at least offer those hybrid. By the end of the year, people will still walk at graduation and things like that, because I know that was huge, Grant. People always talk about, “Oh, it’s a pain to rehearse for graduation.” But that’s such a huge thing, especially in colleges. You want to have that recognition for your family because you put in money, you put in your hard work, so it’s the one time you can get recognized for all your hard work. And I never really understood how important that was until seeing, especially you, you being one of my closer senior friends, being like, “I’m really bummed out about losing my graduation.” When I was like, “You know what? Walking it is just a waste of time.” But now, thinking about it, you’re like, “That’s a pretty big achievement.” Not that many people get to walk in the college graduation and you want to take advantage of that, especially at Michigan.

 

Q: Cam, what’s your perfect semester look like, given the circumstances?

 

Cam: I’m hopeful. I’ve said it time and time again, it’s just going to take everyone. I think oftentimes, especially in the country’s environment right now, we’re so polarized and divided that this could be something that really could bring us together, really that we need to work on. Like Ryan said, the COVID class, this incoming freshmen class, this is going to be part of their legacy. Maybe they can be part of the solution, so I think ideally, we get to some type of normal…I don’t even want it to go back, I want it to get better. We have to take preventative steps so that something like this doesn’t happen again. We have to look at what we did wrong, and acknowledge that, and make the necessary changes so that we can all prevail in this world together as a unit. I think we let a lot of things get in the way this time, and we’re facing the consequences right now. So I’m hopeful. I’d like to get back to some type of normal because college is supposed to be the best four years of your life, so I think we’ll make the best of it as long as everyone does their part. So just do your part.

 

Q: Thank you guys. Cam and Ryan, really appreciate your insights. Good luck with junior and senior year, good luck in your dorms, good luck on your duty rounds and all that.

 

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