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Date Collected

Fall 2018

Place item was collected

Logan, UT

Informant

Catie Giraldes

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Catie Giraldes is 20 years old, an Aries, and originally from Colorado. This is her third year as a Resident Assistant in Snow Hall. She is an Integrated Studies major, and she volunteers a lot. She volunteers with Crisis Text Line online and with the Family Place and CAPSA (Community Abuse Prevention Service Agency) in Cache Valley. She is also a peer educator at the university for SAAVI.

Context

I asked Catie about Behind Closed Doors while she was working in the office. She was cleaning out the cupboards and I was helping her sort out the things she pulled out from inside. The people in our area have been getting sick these last couple weeks. Catie was happy to share her experiences. She’s very focused and aware of the learning outcome goals of BCDs. She has led in-service trainings in the past hat called back to the things we learned in BCDs and the points where we felt we were lacking while going through BCDs. Behind Closed Doors are a set of mock rounds that lets new resident assistants learn about how to confront difficult incidences in a safe environment. It is two new RAs going through a building in the Living Learning Community from bottom to top with increasingly difficult incidences. Returning RAs make this event difficult but also fun.

Text

Catie: I mean, yeah, sure, going through as a new RA is really kinda trippy, kind of feels like if you do it wrong, you’re gonna get fired. Which is dumb. But like, it feels very high stakes, especially since you’ve never dealt with an incident before. Well, I had, I guess, I did deal with an incident beforehand. But! That was a different circumstance.

But uhm, I, they give you a list of all the scenarios that you’re gonna go through. When I did it, they gave you a list of like, you’re going to deal with quiets and a depressed resident and some other things. So, I go to take notes about what I wanted to do. And I got to pull up policies. They got that the year after I did BCDs. So when I did BCDS, I had a list of everything I got to do. And I got to prepare for it. So I wrote down my policies that I wanted to remember. And like, my, like, all my tones of voice, so I studied for it.

Uhm, and then, the one I messed up the most, was uh, depressed resident? Uhm, no! It was sexual assault! And I was like, it’s up to you if you wanna report it or not. And apparently at that point in time, our policy was that we had to report it.

Me: isn’t it our policy that we still have to report it? Cause Clery Act?

Catie: Yeaaah. So we’re mandatory reporters. Yes. So yes, we still have to report it. And so I got in trouble for that. But like, I studied hard for those. Yeah, yeah.

Me: Any other comments about going through BCDs?

Catie: I remember Kassia was really terrible at acting drunk, especially since now I know how she acts when she’s drunk. But that was like, the biggest thing I remember is that I messed up my one thing, and then it’s also weird, like seeing your coworkers as like troublemakers. Because I don’t think of them as that way. Like you’re looking up to these people, and then they’re breaking the rules and you’re like, I have to pretend to have authority over you. And that was weird. That was probably the weirdest part, was pretending I had authority over these people that like, I thought of as my mentors.

Texture

Catie didn’t face me for any of this story really. She was very much involved with her task and kept working, which is okay because I did ask her while she was working. She was very blasé about saying where she’d messed up and she spoke through her laughter while describing specific people.

Course

ENGL 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeill

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G7: Occupation/Avocation

EAD Number

3.8.11.2

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