Event assistants aid student groups, receive free housing
Matt Mitgang | Student LifeSophomore Daniel Michon films tryouts for this year’s Carnaval performance. Michon is an event assistant with the Office of Residential Life.
As ALAS (Association of Latin American Students) members led auditions for more than 20 hopeful Carnaval participants on Sunday, a sophomore in an emblazoned black polo quietly set up the speaker system and video-recording equipment at the front of the Mudd Multipurpose Room. As they danced, he remained alert for any technical difficulties.
Sophomore Daniel Michon is one of eight undergraduate students given free Residential Life housing for working as an event assistant—a position created by ResLife to make student events run more smoothly.
Event assistants are available for any ResLife meeting space and are required for any group using College Hall. They help student groups use audio/visual equipment, set up rooms, communicate with the housekeeping staff and liaise with catering services to make sure events go as smoothly as planned.
“Really, they’re there to help with the smaller details people don’t often think about,” said Brittney Roetzel, assistant director for special facilities and programs for ResLife.
The assistants also help plan for essential services like trash removal and coat storage at larger functions.
Event Services also has event assistants available for any event planned in the Danforth University Center or Graham Chapel.
More than 40 students applied last April for the ResLife position, and eight were selected after a round of interviews. Next semester, ResLife hopes to expand the group to 12.
Compensation for next year has not been decided, but ResLife stands by its decision to pay for housing.
“For ResLife programs, we compensate with housing, and we want to make sure they’re ResLife students because they work in ResLife spaces,” Roetzel said.
The Social Justice Center (SJC) is also a ResLife program, but its employees are paid through work-study. Roetzel said that this is because the SJC is more of an auxiliary program with ResLife, and therefore does not necessitate free housing.
Michon says that compensation did not play a role in his decision to apply to be an event assistant.
“A lot of [Event Assistants] are on College Council, and they looked at this job as another way to extend to the entire Wash. U. community,” Michon said.
According to Michon, compensation for the position is unrelated to recently contested fees imposed by ResLife.
“A lot of people think the new rent space fees are going to us, and that’s just ridiculous. We’re just getting our housing compensated, but that’s not a main focus or anything,” Michon said. “You have to think of [the position] like an RA—people aren’t nitpicking that RAs are useless, that we don’t need RAs—RAs are an integral part of this university, and we’re trying to make this position look like that too.”
ResLife requires that event assistants live on campus so that they are close to the spaces they care for.
Event assistants are easily able to contact people, like housekeeping and groundskeeping staff, in the event of an unexpected occurrence.
According to Roetzel, an event assistant on duty at a recent College Hall event noticed the steps outside were icing over and promptly contacted the groundskeeping staff, who made sure the pathway was cleared.
“We’re a team,” Michon said. “There are a lot of different viewpoints, and everyone brings their own things to the table.”
ResLife is short somewhere between $64 and $80 thousand dollars by giving them free housing.
The new costs may not be directly funding them (per any budget ResLife has worked out), but you have to be delusional not to see that an 80,000 shortfall has to be picked up somehow. (The other Jan 21st article on the new fees mentions student groups will spend about 31,000 on reserving rooms a year if usage is the same).
There is no way that these kids are doing enough work to merit free housing. Comparing them to the amount of work an RA does is ridiculous, and whether or not CS40 execs should receive free housing is a debate for another day.
I don’t doubt that this job’s existence is somewhat necessary, but Michon placing it on the same level of an RA’s is absolutely absurd. No other ResLife positions (RPMs, RPHEs, etc.) get free housing, even though they play important roles on the South Forty as well. SU execs don’t even receive compensation, and they are the students that work to let student groups run in the first place. This job’s compensation needs to become some sort of Federal work-study or have some sort of hourly salary. Also, while I agree with the event assistants that you can’t really blame the room rental fees on their position’s existence, you still have to admit that the money ResLife loses in one way does have to come back to them in another way.
follow the money
“According to Michon, compensation for the position is unrelated to recently contested fees imposed by ResLife.”
The cash had to make up for you not paying for housing had to come from somewhere
so dumb. Event assistants are no where NEAR what RAs are. I would even argue that CS40 Execs do more to justify their free housing than Event assistants.