Petition Organizer: UCCS Resident Assistants For Better Compensation

ATTN: CU President Todd Saliman and University of Colorado Board of Regents

Dear CU President Todd Saliman and CU Board of Regents,

At the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Resident Assistants (RAs) employed under UCCS Residence Life and Housing are advocating for a starting stipend of $100 per month for every month an RA is a part of the position. We are asking the University of Colorado Board of Regents and CU President to support us by allowing UCCS to receive funding in order to give all RAs a starting stipend of $100 each month. We are also calling on the Board of Regents to establish a specific price classification for all RA rooms in order for equitable compensation to be given to all RAs who work and live in the same position.  

 Resident Assistants (RAs) at UCCS receive credit for room and board but do not receive an adequate monetary allowance for the cost of living expenses. Currently, RAs are provided with a single room and meal plans as a form of compensation, both of which are not enough to support RAs’ basic needs. RAs need monetary compensation to afford things such as clothing, food, transportation, healthcare, and/or to have a safety net for emergency situations. RAs at UCCS are provided with different meal plans depending on what type of housing they are placed in. RA compensation also fails to fulfill the needs of RAs who live in the apartments. Though they are provided with kitchens, apartment RAs are given a small meal plan, without any monetary compensation to buy their own groceries. In contrast, CU Boulder RAs are provided with equal compensation for the board in the form of unlimited meal plans regardless of placement. All RAs who work winter break do not get paid a stipend for groceries, despite the dining hall services remaining closed. This is unjust, as, without dining services to utilize a meal plan, RAs who work over winter break do not receive the full compensation established within their contract which is described in the Resident Assistant job description. Colorado State University Resident Assistants are granted over $150 in university cash (similar to our Clyde’s Cash), whereas UCCS RAs are only given $50 in Clyde’s Cash, similar to what UCCS freshmen receive. At the end of three semesters, returning RAs in the CSU school system also receive over $300 in stipends for their work. In total, they receive $450 extra dollars along with their room and board compensation. RAs who serve on-call/duty shifts at CSU during university-sanctioned holidays and during break periods also receive an hourly rate of the current minimum wage to afford groceries when dining halls are shut down (CSU Housing and Dining Services, 2022). CSU provides this compensation for all 187 of the universities’ RAs.

Although RAs at UCCS are allowed to get additional jobs, they are limited by policy to only work an additional 10-15 hours per week outside of campus. If RAs exceed the 25-hour limit, set by Student Employment, the University would be required to offer “health insurance to employees working at least 30 hours per week (or 130 hours per month) to avoid paying penalties” as listed in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Past Resident Assistants were assigned Front Desk Shifts in resident hall buildings alongside the front desk assistants (FDAs). With the front desk shifts added to the tasks assigned to RAs, Residence Life realized RAs were working more hours than the 25-hour limit and wanted to provide RAs with less by removing desk shifts from their duty load. A sensible idea in theory but unfortunately, the extra free-time RAs were given by not having to cover front desk shifts has been taken up with other tasks such as the Commode Chronicles, Black-Out dates, and All Staff Meetings. After removing the responsibility of desk shifts from RAs, Residence Life instead used its budget to provide hourly wages for over 10 new FDA employees instead of using it to provide stipends to the RAs. The opportunity to get an off-campus job is also limited for many of the RAs because they lack reliable transportation and do not have the flexibility or availability asked for by many employers. Many RAs would be homeless without this job, and, unfortunately, many have quit regardless of the rising costs of living. Even though Student Employment caps student on-campus jobs at 25 hours a week, RAs work over the 25-hour limit by picking up extra duty shifts due to the increasing amount of employees quitting, and resolving extreme incidents in the residence halls which include, but are not limited to, wellness checks, sexual/physical/verbal harassment cases, alcohol/drug-related instances, roommate conflicts, vandalism, and facilities disasters. The average duty shift that we complete during the semester is factored into the 25-hour-a-week tracker which is designed to prevent RAs from “over-working” but also sets the basis for the price of compensation we receive. However, some RAs work more duty shifts a semester in comparison depending on the village they are in, and also add extra duty shifts due to the increased amount of people quitting. Therefore, RAs are doing more work for less compensation. RAs deserve greater compensation to match the amount of time we spend working above the 25-hour limit. RAs are also given a $75 budget per semester to use for 35-80 residents (resident number dependent on the RA) on community builders. For just 35 residents, only $2.15 per resident is spent per semester. 

Currently, RAs are also required to attend two in-services a semester or job training. We do not get compensated for our time like other departmental employees but are expected to do the same amount of work at no cost. For example, A-Team, a mentoring program that has meetings, and professional development opportunities on campus, is something that all departments recommend at least one person of their staff to do. Most people on the A-Team get paid, however, the RAs that are recommended for this opportunity, are not paid. RAs accrue sick time, but because we are not compensated with wages, we cannot use the sick time. Other student employees can call out sick, but RAs cannot. 

If an RA seeks to secure a spot in one of the academic research offices, they are not allowed to be a researcher and an RA at the same time during the fall and spring semesters as it is deemed as an on-campus job that can contribute to exceeding the 25-hour job limit. Instead, they must apply to be a research assistant in the summer when they are not working as an RA. However, as RAs, the message we received from Residence Life is that academics come first. But our student researchers who want to receive further education skill-wise cannot put academics first because of their job. An RA who quit this year due to wanting to pursue other educational opportunities told me that he felt that quitting was the best decision he made as he is now allowed to work three other jobs on-campus as a teacher assistant and intern. By the end of the semester, he will make a total of $4,000 and further his appeal to professional work out of college.  

In the student bursar portal, RAs are provided with a View1098-T tax form to fill out and to receive money back in. Anything more than the cost of tuition is typically taxable income. The approximate $14,000 used to cover room and board is not tuition and RAs are taxed based on this money.

RAs live, work, and study on the same campus, which realistically puts the 25 hours per week into a full-time position based on the policies that Residence Life and Housing enforce. This requires us to be on campus for the majority of the time during our employment and requires us to report when we will leave campus. The 45 RAs, 4 Resident Hall Managers, and 1 Graduate Assistant for Housing at UCCS are the median between over 1,684 residents that live on the UCCS campus. The expectation that RAs can effectively maintain the well-being of all their residents and themselves, while maintaining their status as students, with the additional understanding of being responsible for our financial needs, is unrealistic without additional support from UCCS.  

As inflation continues to skyrocket across the nation, many universities currently provide monetary compensation to their RAs for their hard work and effort. As an ongoing nationwide mental health crisis occurs, we should be asking if the CU system is setting an appropriate standard for student employment. We believe that by failing to meet the basic needs of employees in the RA role, CU is failing to meet an appropriate standard. We must ask if this is something that CU System leadership has become comfortable with.

We ask anyone to sign our petition to help our RAs meet their most basic needs and protect the well-being of our student employees. We demand that Resident Assistants at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs receive a starting stipend of $100 each month and that our compensation of room and board be equal to the standards of compensation of other CU schools.