Today: Mar 28, 2024

Resident Advisors decorate floors specific themes

Donovan Wilson Reporter

RAs, or resident advisors, have always put effort into decorating their halls, but with COVID-19 raging on and causing students to be spending more time in their resident halls, RA’s have gotten very creative with their decorations in an effort to boost morale.

Being an RA comes with many of responsibilities, including looking over everyone in the hall, making sure everyone stays orderly and keeping everything is clean and in good shape.

COVID-19 has not changed those responsibilities but it has limited the full experience of being an RA. A big part of being an RA is holding events, although those are much more limited than they used to be. As a replacement for these programs and events, RAs have put a lot of effort into filling their halls with immersive themed decorations.

“I want the residence hall to be what the residents want to see and help make that a big thing for everybody,” said Abdel Ben-Toukour, an RA located in Chase Hall.

Ben-Toukour and his co-RA decided to decorate their section of Chase Hall to look like a foot locker as they both love sneakers and clothing. A lot of this decision was also made by the fact that Ben-Toukour happens to work at a clothing store and has some insider information as to how to make the most realistic set up.

The decorations themselves include representations of clothing and shoes and a prominent sneaker wall that features Ben-Toukour’s favorite shoes and the favorite shoes of his residents.

A lot of the theme was based on feedback from Ben-Toukour’s residents on what they wanted to see as a theme. He took this approach because it reflected what his previous RAs had done, which resulted in a video game theme for the floor where he lived. The Foot Locker theme was a result of a large interest in athleticism and sneakers.

Schwartz Hall RA, Xavier Swilling, chose streaming as his floor theme. Many of the decorations include cutouts of streaming companies such as Netflix, Spotify and Hulu.

“My floor theme is streaming and TV channels. I wanted to choose something that I enjoyed and that I thought that other people could relate to as well. Seeing as most people use some sort of streaming platform on a daily basis,” Swilling said.

Swilling whad different ideas than Ben-Toukour has, in terms of his decorations, and decided to stick with something students have been doing during quarantine and breaks from class.

The process behind picking this theme was very similar to that of Ben-Toukour’s as he also wanted to have a theme he knew everybody would enjoy and relate to. The decorations themselves consist mostly of the logos to different streaming platforms and more television related things hanging up around the hall.

“I had no experience prior to COVID so this is my first semester as an RA. Due to this, I am obviously not getting the full experience but it’s still been a really good experience,” Ben-Toukour said.

Photo credit: Roma Rositani

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