By Kate Augusto and Erin Kelly
Resident Assistants (RAs) will for the first time have a document detailing their rights starting this fall, student leaders on campus said.
Marines Piney, this past year’s Student Government Association (SGA) vice president for student affairs who spearheaded the creation of the RA Bill of Rights, said RAs have always been held to unwritten rules.
“[RA’s] didn’t really know what was expected of them,” Piney said. “When it came to the rights they had, it wasn’t really stated anywhere.”
She said she decided to pursue the creation of the document at the beginning of her term last year when two former RAs came to SGA seeking help because they had been terminated in what they felt was an unjust process.
“They didn’t really know what they had been doing wrong. They knew historically things had been done some way, but in no case was anything ever written down on paper,” Piney said.
After the students came to SGA, Piney met with Associate Dean and Director of Residential Life Robert Jose, who then worked with other administration officials and senior RAs to come up with the points in the document.
“One of the things we wanted to make clear was ‘OK this is the protocol, this is what they’ve been doing for a long time, this is what’s allowed and this is their rights,'” Piney said.
Jose said in an e-mail to The News that he would not comment on the Bill of Rights until all involved parties had been informed of the details of the Bill, which Piney said will be unveiled during RA training in August.
Matthew Soleyn, Resident Student Association’s (RSA) vice president for housing services, said RAs sign a contract every year that includes expectations of their duties, including attending meetings, training and holding office hours. However, he said the difference is that the contracts don’t detail their rights, especially in terms of disciplinary action.
“The RA Bill of Rights helps to ensure that RAs who face disciplinary action have a documented process, and have their rights maintained throughout the whole process,” said Soleyn, who also said RSA advocates on behalf of RAs.
Piney stressed the fact that the document, which was finished around May, will not only protect terminated RAs but all RAs, and includes other provisions like housing specifications.
Piney would not release the names of the terminated RAs who came to SGA or their situations citing confidentiality.
A female Northeastern student who has been an RA for one year said she has not heard of any suggested RA Bill of Rights, but thinks a document like it could benefit RAs.
The student, who wished to remain anonymous because RAs are prohibited from talking to media, said an RA friend of hers was terminated before he had a chance to provide his side of the story to ResLife and the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR).
“I do know of [other RAs] who I think could have gone through a bit more questioning before they were terminated, or a bit more thorough discussion or investigation,” she said. “RAs should have a much more thorough chance to explain themselves-not just from an RA point of view, but an OSCCR point of view too.”
Soleyn said that in general, RAs can be terminated for breaking the Code of Student Conduct or not doing aspects of their job, like holding office hours.
Piney said she hopes the Bill of Rights will accomplish its goal of helping RAs better determine what they can and cannot do.
“I wanted a safeguard for RAs, just as we have a handbook for everything else,” she said.
– News staff Maggie Cassidy
contributed to this report.
