Residence Hall Staffing and Liability Concerns
With the Spring 2003 decision to
suspend the basketball and golf programs at NPC, a new phase of existence began
for the NPC residence hall. Athletics
provided both the majority of residents and the staff for the residence hall,
so the suspension of athletics has dictated a subsequent decline in residents
and an ongoing staffing concern.
Non-athlete residency at
Staffing of the NPC residence hall has been an intermittent problem for the college, but in the past has often been resolved by utilizing basketball coaching staff in the Residence Hall Coordinator and Assistant Coordinator capacities. In the 2001-2002 academic year, for example, an individual was offered the positions of assistant basketball coach and residence hall assistant with a stipend of $6000/year plus free room. In 2001-2002 the PDC campus manager was hired as residence hall coordinator in addition to her regular duties. In 2002-2003, the women’s basketball coach was hired as residence hall coordinator with a part-time stipend of $14,000, in addition to his normal coaching and faculty duties. Since money did not exist to hire a residence hall assistant in 2002-2003, a student was offered the position of “student resident assistant” with a stipend of $2000/year plus room and tuition.
In 2003-2004, there were only three applicants for the residence hall coordinator position. Each applicant had a full-time day job and would be taking on residence hall duties as a second job. Again lacking funds for a full-time coordinator and part-time assistant, NPC hired a part-time coordinator at a stipend of $14,000, and offered a new faculty member a room at the residence hall in exchange of being “on call” two nights/week to provide relief to the coordinator.
In short, it has been routine practice to have only intermittent staffing and supervision at the residence hall for the past several years. When PDC was adjacent to the residence hall and athletes/coaches lived at the residence hall, this was less of a supervision and liability concern. The campus office was within walking distance and a larger residence hall population increased the chances that someone would be available to deal with any emergencies that might arise.
Today the supervisory and liability situation for the residence hall is very different. The old campus is nearly empty. Over the next few semesters, as the rest of the offices still at the old campus shift to new facilities, the residence hall and its occupants will become physically isolated from the rest of campus. Unless additional resources are allocated to staffing the residence hall, we will, at best, have supervision over the building for 10-12 hours per day. During the other 12-14 hours there will be no supervision whatsoever. During those hours, are nearest on-call staff person would be the campus manager at the new PDC campus, who may or may not be available to respond to emergencies.
The college attorney is concerned that we are operating a residential facility at which we do not provide 24-hour, 7-days-per-week staff supervision. At current funding levels, we cannot provide that type of supervision. If we raise funding levels, the residence hall becomes even less fiscally tenable at its current occupancy rate.
Two weeks ago an assault involving two students occurred at the residence hall. Fortunately this incident occurred in the evening while college staff were on duty. It is reasonable to assume, however, that if we continue with the current staffing pattern we soon will be faced with an incident that occurs when no staff are present. If such an incident did occur, not only would we be placing our residents at risk, but NPC itself would potentially be in a difficult liability situation. Adequate staffing would greatly reduce the liability risk and improve the residence hall service we can offer to students.
Assuming that adequate staffing would involve one full-time and one part-time staff person, we could reasonably assume a combined salary for the two positions of roughly $45,000 (this is a salary figure only and does not factor in benefits). Our current salary outlay for staffing is $14,000, so this staffing change would increase the average yearly operating costs of the building (using a 1998-2004 average figure) from $52,000 to $83,000. We currently have 18 rooms in operation for residents. Assuming two residents per room at the current rate of $750/semester, NPC can generate $54,000 per year in residence hall revenue. If we triple each room and thus accommodate 54 students, the revenue climbs to $81,000. Thus, the only way to come close to covering the costs for adequate staffing is to either triple students in rooms, significantly increase the room cost for students, or some combination of the two.
It should be noted that increasing the number of students at the facility and the number of students per room would by definition greatly increase disciplinary issues at the facility. Heavier use will also accelerate the maintenance and repair issues at the residence hall. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that operating expenses would climb well above $83,000 per year if the number of residents dramatically increased.
As a closing observation, it would be worthwhile to consider
the feasibility of attracting enough student residents to make the residence
hall relatively self-supporting. While
it is true that little intensive advertising of the facility has occurred in
the past (in large part because it had a guaranteed population of at least
25-30 athletes), we have little evidence to indicate that 54 students per year
would actually like to live at