An Introduction to the Community Standards Process Adapted from The Community Standards Model: A Method to Enhance Student Learning & Development by Terry D. Piper

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An Introduction to the Community Standards
Process Adapted from The Community
Standards Model A Method to Enhance Student
Learning Development by Terry D. Piper
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From Student Life to Residential Education

• Complex Secretary Office Manager
• Resident Assistant Resident Advisor
• Complex Coordinator Residence Director
• Area Coordinator Assistant Director
• Assistant Director Associate Director

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What are Community Standards?

• Community Standards are shared agreements that
  define mutual expectations for how a community
  will function on an interpersonal level. They
  define how members will
• Treat each other and their environment
• Celebrate successes
• Address behavioral issues

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How are Community Standards Established?

• Community Standards are determined through
  community consensus, which necessitates the
  development of
• interpersonal sensitivity and understanding
• problem-solving skills
• conflict resolution skills
• decision-making skills

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What is the GOAL of a Community Standards
Process?

• The goal of the Community Standards Process is
  the learning and development that occurs for
  individuals through participation in the
  standards process.
• The success of the Standards process relies on
  three key principles.

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Community Standards Principle 1

• Interaction Peer interaction has been shown to
  be the single most potent source of influence on
  growth and development during undergraduate
  years (Astin 1993).
• Robert Kegan (1982 1994) suggests that, for
  most college students, self is defined by those
  with whom the student relatesthe students sense
  of self is dependent upon others approval and
  liking.
• If Kegan is correct, then the peer group is
  powerful because it represents the self. The
  peer group is, therefore, the context in and
  through which significant learning can take
  place.

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Community Standards Principle 2

• Dialogue The Standards Process creates
  opportunities for dialogue in which students
  express their points of view and hear the points
  of view of others.
• The exchange of ideas, challenge of values and
  beliefs, experiencing of consequences, and
  struggling with the gray areas create the impetus
  to develop a sense of self within the peer group.

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Community Standards Principle 3

• Perspective Taking The ability of a student to
  state his or her point of view.
• This necessitates personal reflection and a
  degree of self awareness independent from peers
  influence.
• Hearing alternative points of view facilitates
  perspective-taking skills and critical thinking.

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How do Staff and Student INTERACTIONS Change?

• Staffs primary role is no longer to control
  students and the environment, but to guide the
  community toward an understanding and
  implementation of individual and group
  responsibility and accountability based upon
  mutual expectation and desires.
• Standards replace the philosophy of control with
  a philosophy of individual and group empowerment.
• The standards process shifts the role
• of staff from authority-based to
  facilitator-based action
• of student from recipient to creator of
  experiences

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What is the desired OUTCOME of the Community
Standards Process?

• The Community Standards process actualizes
  principles that promote student self-authored
  identity development and, thereby, enhances
  complex reasoning and critical thinking
  abilities.
• As a result, a by-product of the Community
  Standards Model is a healthy community.

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What characterizes a HEALTHY COMMUNITY?

• Members openly communicating and increasing their
  desire for involvement
• Members understanding and valuing their personal
  contributions to the community
• Members actively learning
• civility
• responsibility
• accountability

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Institutions currently using and/or implementing
Community Standards.

• The University of Virginia
• New York University
• University of Nevada at Las Vegas
• Syracuse
• The University of Michigan
• Michigan State
• Eastern Michigan
• Brown University

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What do we need from Police Services?

• Communication between Police Services and
  Residential Life staff members on duty regarding
  hall incidents
• Duty RA involvement in confronting hall incidents
  where applicable and appropriate
• Knowledge of when Police are in the halls and for
  what purpose
• Patience -- This is a paradigm shift and will
  take some getting used to on all of our parts

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ACTION STEPS to Implement the Community
Standards Process

• Extended RA Training-focused on CS Model and
  conflict resolution
• Roommate Contracts Community Living Agreements
• Weekly Floor Meetings
• Weekly Programming
• Accountability Meetings
• In house judicial process