Soon, Rider Hall residents will be welcoming a new Residence Life Coordinator (RLC) after the departure of Ellie Hail-Langer, who had been Rider’s RLC at the start of the fall 2017 school year.

According to Nicholas Rafanello, the director of residence life, the returning RLC for Rider Hall moved to another position outside of the state. This vacancy ocurred early in September, prompting the start of the search for a new RLC.

In an email sent to Rider Hall residents, Katelyn Melcher stated that she took on more responsibilities as the Rider Hall senior resident assistant. When asked by the Northern Iowan (NI) for a comment on the situation, Melcher declined.

“We have currently filled our vacancy and are in the process of transitioning our staff,” Rafanello said. “The feedback that we have received from staff and students is that our efforts to minimize the impact on students have been successful, and we are looking to move forward next semester.”

An anonymous student stated that last year’s RLC for Rider, Hail-Langer, took a job opportunity at another school.

“What that meant for Rider was that we didn’t have a full-time RLC, not that we were lacking one,” the student said. “So we’ve had Coree Burton from Hagemann Hall; he has been behind the scenes running through both Hagemann and Rider, so we’ve never been without an RLC.”

The student also mentioned how having a part-time RLC affected the residents of Rider.

“The freshmen don’t really know what it’s like to have a full-time RLC, whereas the upperclassmen in the building do know what last year was like, and they might be comparing what it was like to have a full-time versus a part-time RLC,” the student said.

The RLC’s job involves conducting meetings and transitions if a student wants to change rooms.

“I’ve talked to RAs [resident assistant] about it and they were like, ‘Yeah, I mean we’ve been doing fine without one, but it’s nice to have one,’” said Kaylee Watson, sophomore elementary education major. “[But Rider Hall] Senate people really need an RLC.”

The entire Rider Hall Senate Executive Board was contacted for comment by the NI. As of press time, President Katie Wempen, Treasurer Lucas Kaufman and Residence Hall Association (RHA) representative Peter Dreifuss responded with no comment. Secretary Kendall Doerr, RHA representative Hetasvi Patel, Advertising Director Jessa Bokhoven and Programming Director Julia Reicks have yet to respond to the NI’s attempts to contact as of press time.

“I know a lot of people have been nervous to talk about it because of social media; people have been pretty vocal about what they do or don’t think,” the anonymous student said.

According to an email from Hageman Hall RLC Coree Burton, all students close to the RLC situation had been told to direct all the NI’s inquiries to Rafanello. Students who do not work for the Department of Residence (DOR), which includes all of the Rider Hall Senate Executives, are in no way legally barred from doing so.

Around October, when the DOR had found a replacement RLC for Rider, the Noehren Hall RLC Joann Chenoweth announced that she had accepted a position on campus elsewhere.

“I feel like it’s kind of stupid in a way how we had one set up, but then Noehren lost theirs so then they got ours,” said Zach Schaber, sophomore Spanish education major.

“We have restructured our staff to meet the student and department needs,” Rafanello said.

“I don’t understand why Noehren needs one over us,” Schaber said. “But I feel like we should be getting it, if we had already had it set up instead of Noehren.”

The anonymous student also addressed the backlash that occurred on social media after Rider was left without a full-time RLC.

According to the anonymous student, the staff of Rider Hall has found a replacement for now.

“The DOR has hired someone, a graduate student who is majoring in student affairs, to be Rider’s RLC,” the student said. “The new RLC will be slowly accumulating [sic] and getting into the rhythm of understanding what Rider Hall is and has already started to learn the ropes.”

According to another source that wishes to remain anonymous, Ethan Brown, a current student affairs graduate student, has been named the assistant RLC (ARLC), which is a temporary position. The permanent RLC position is likely to be filled by fall of 2018.