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On-Campus Living

Welcome!

Thank you for your interest in the hall staff positions at Bowling Green State University!

BGSU is home to nearly 20,000 students, including over 6,400 students who live on campus.

Undergraduate students have a two-year, on-campus residency requirement and are housed in 1 of 9 residential complexes. Housing options include traditional and suite-style residence halls. There are also 8 residential learning communities and 7 residential theme communities in which students can choose to participate. BGSU has received national recognition for these communities.

The Office of Residence Life is committed to providing a safe and inclusive environment that promotes students’ academic and personal success. BGSU’s Core Values of Respect for One Another, Collaboration, Intellectual and Personal Growth, Creativity and Innovation, and the Pursuit of Excellence guide the work as student-centered programs and services are provided throughout the year.

BGSU staff plays a critical role in student development and retention, making the on-campus living experience a critical piece of students’ college experience. The Office of Residence Life employs 32 professional staff members in the areas of Housing Administration, Facilities, Budgeting, Marketing, Technology, and Residence Education.

The Residence Education staff is pictured at right wearing their alma mater gear to show that our staff brings a diversity of experience to BGSU.

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Residence Life at-a-Glance Interesting things in NW Ohio Bowling Green, Ohio offers a variety of things to do in its downtown area and at the Wood County Fairgrounds. In downtown BG, you’ll find a number of shops and restaurants from gift shops to small family dining to national chain restaurants, as well as Elder Beerman, Dunham’s Sporting Goods, Wal-Mart, Meijer, TJ Maxx, and Cinemark Movies. Additionally, downtown offers a number of banking options, the local post office, and the public library.

The Wood County Fairgrounds hosts the Wood County Fair at the end of July, but it’s more popular for being the site of the National Tractor Pull every year in August. People come to Bowling Green from all over the world for this event!

Because Bowling Green is just a short drive away from Toledo, Perrysburg, and Maumee, there are nearby attractions to visit in the area. Toledo is home to the Mudhens, the AAA Baseball team of the Detroit Tigers. If you enjoy hockey, the Toledo Walleyes, an ECHL team for the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks, provide some great entertainment as well.

The Arts are very prominent in the Bowling Green and Toledo area. Bowling Green is home to the Black Swamp Arts Festival, an annual art fair that promotes the arts in Bowling Green and connects art to the community. The Toledo Museum of Art offers a number of exhibits. As its nickname, “The Glass City” suggests, Toledo is home to a number of glass art galleries and glass blowing studios. Toledo’s Stranahan Theater and Huntington Center see many popular off-Broadway shows, widely-renowned plays, and major recording artists.

The Toledo area also has a number of great locations for shopping. Franklin Park Mall on the Northwest side of the city is Toledo’s largest mall with many major stores. Fallen Timbers is an outdoor mall in Maumee, just about 20 minutes from Bowling Green. The closest Toledo area shopping center to Bowling Green is Levis Commons, which is about 10 minutes north. Because of its proximity to Michigan, many people in Northwest Ohio take quick trips to southeast Michigan for fun adventures and great shopping. The nearest IKEA is in Canton, Michigan, which is just about 1 hour and 15 minutes away from Bowling Green.

Distance from Bowling Green to…

Ann Arbor – 71 miles Detroit – 83 miles Windsor, Ontario, Canada – 88 miles Cleveland – 115 miles Columbus – 124 miles Cincinnati – 183 miles Indianapolis – 232 miles Pittsburgh – 241 miles Chicago – 254 miles

Detroit Toledo Bowling Green

Cleveland

Our Vision The Office of Residence Life aspires to be a premier living-learning community, and a national model for developing individuals and shaping the future through learning, discovery, collaboration, and personal growth.

Our Mission The Office of Residence Life promotes an engaging, safe, and inclusive environment for academic success and personal growth through student-centered programs, innovative services, and cost-effective facilities.

Our Diversity Statement The Office of Residence Life values and recognizes our responsibility to foster an inclusive, safe, and respectful community so our students succeed in a diverse, global society. We are committed to building an awareness of diverse thoughts, ideas, and experiences on our campus in which our community members are empowered to use their voices and be heard.

BGSU Core Values • Respect for one another • Collaboration • Intellectual and Personal Growth • Creativity and Innovation • Pursuit of Excellence

Residence Education Action Teams Columbus Cincinnati

• Selection • Training • Programming • Academics • Administration • Diversity

Signature Programs Falcon Achievement Program (FAP) and the First Year Achievement Program (FYAP) FAP and FYAP programs are retention initiatives designed to help RAs provide purposeful, intentional, one-on-one interactions with residential students, which supports their personal and academic success and retention.

Tunnel of Oppression – As part of our efforts to bring awareness to the topics of diversity, power, privilege, and social justice, the Office of Residence Life annually presents the Tunnel of Oppression, a self-guided interactive event open to students, faculty, staff, and the general public, that exposes the realities of oppression with a full sensory experience.

Taste of February – Taste of February, sponsored by the Office of Residence Life and the SMART Program, is a campus-wide Black History Month celebration. The event raises awareness by celebrating food and culture from around the African Diaspora, as well as focusing on the events, people, and actions that formed our nation’s past and that are shaping its future.

Casino Night – Resident Student Association’s annual Casino Night is a campus-wide program put on each year during BGSU’s Opening Week.

Attracting over 1,000 participants, new and returning students have the opportunity to meet, win prizes, and play casino-style games run by campus “celebrity” dealers.

St. Baldrick’s – The Office of Residence Life and the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) sponsor this program. The St. Baldrick’s foundation is the world’s largest volunteer-driven fundraising opportunity benefiting childhood cancer research. BGSU student volunteer “shavees” shave their heads in solidarity with children with cancer, while requesting donations of support from friends and family. In 2012, the event raised $23,259.

Bed Races – Bed Races is an opportunity for students and organizations to have some competitive fun the week of Homecoming.

Students form teams of five and race rolling residence hall beds. This event not only celebrates competition, but BGSU spirit!

Retention Initiatives

Leadership Opportunities

SMART Program – The Office of Residence Life SMART (Students of Color Mentoring, Aiding, Retaining, and Teaching) Program is a peer mentoring program specifically designed to address transition issues faced by first-year students of color who may find themselves in the minority for the first time. The program is open to any first-year student who applies, but everything is approached from the student of color perspective. In 2013, African American students in the SMART program were retained at 69%, while African American students not in the SMART program were retained at 50%.

Resident Student Association (RSA) – RSA is the coordinating body of the residential community. The goal of RSA is to work with all of the residence hall and Greek House councils, the hall and house staff, and Residence Life and BGSU administrative offices to improve the quality of residential life at BGSU through the development and improvement of policies, procedures, program, and facilities.

Major Mondays – This program helps with our retention efforts for Pre-Major and Academic Planning students, as well as undecided students in each of the College areas by bringing the faculty into the halls to talk about the classes they teach, what careers exist in the majors, and the skills necessary to be successful in the major. “Major Mondays” further educates students about the curriculum of different majors and gives students an opportunity to network with faculty in various disciplines.

Academic Challenge – In partnership with the Learning Commons, the Office of Residence Life staff challenges the entire residential community to achieve even greater academic success and earn higher grades by recording their study hours. Through this challenge, students have the opportunity to win prizes based on the number of recorded hours they spend studying. The Office of Residence Life has seen measurable academic improvement through participation in this program.

National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) – The Falcon Chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary is comprised of the top 1% of student leaders living on campus. As part of a national association, NRHH focuses their work in the areas of leadership, scholastics, service, and recognition, bringing important resources to the campus of Bowling Green State University.

Additionally, NRHH actively takes part in oncampus programs and activities in conjunction with the Resident Student Association.

Leaders In Residence (LIR) – LIR is part of a leadership program series offered by the Office of Residence Life centered on Kouzes and Posner’s Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.

It is a six-week workshop series during the spring semester for on-campus students who aspire to develop and hone their leadership skills. In 2012, of the 131 first-year students the LIR program, 79.4% returned in the Fall; compared to 69.8% retention among students not in the program. First-year LIR students achieved an average cumulative GPA of 3.02, while their cohort peers, not in the program, achieved a 2.54.

Staffing Summary of 2013-2014 Residence Education Front Desks – 10 Desk Clerks – 240 Resident Advisors – 168 Student Desk Managers – 10 Hall Ambassadors – 6 Graduate Hall Directors – 9 Residence Hall Directors – 9 Coordinator for Diversity Initiatives & Retention – 1

Graduate SMART Coordinator – 1 SMART Mentors – 25 SMART Team Leaders – 5 Coordinator for Leadership and Adminstration – 1 Graduate Leadership Coordinator - 1 Senior Coordinator for Academics and Assessment – 1 Assistant Directors – 2 Senior Associate Director – 1

About Our Residence Halls • 2-yr. live-in requirement for students • Total Occupancy of Halls (based on 2013-2014): 6217

Singles: 839 Doubles: 5378 Triples (Centennial): 51

Building Capacity and Amenities for 2013-2014

Professional Development

Centennial : 664 residents, air-conditioned double rooms with private bathrooms, predominantly first-year students

Hall Directors and Graduate Assistants are encouraged to attend conferences such as GLACUHO, NASPA-IV East, ACPA, NASPA, and others. $750 is available in professional development for full-time Hall Directors with the opportunity to have more allocated for select conferences.

Conklin: 261 residents, air-conditioned double rooms, first-year and upper-class students Harshman Quadrangle: 675 double rooms, predominantly first-year students Kreischer Quadrangle: 1330, double rooms, Arts Village (Compton), Music Community (Batchelder), predominantly first-year students Kohl: 310 residents, double rooms, Chapman Community, Global Village, La Comunidad, French House, predominantly first-year students

Programming in the Residence Halls

McDonald: 737, double rooms, Aviation Community, Army ROTC, Construction Management, Educators in Context and Community (ECCO), first-year and upperclass students

The Community Development Plan (CDP) is our programming model designed to help students adjust to their college environment (transition), develop into mature students (identity development), continue their education (retention), and create a positive living-learning experience (principles of community). Although one could argue that it accomplishes more than helping with transitions, identity development, retention, and community building, these are four of the large goals on which our CDP’s theoretical framework focuses. *Note- This is subject to change for the 2014-2015 academic year.

Offenhauer: 838, air-conditioned double rooms, Natural Health & Science Residential Learning Community, first-year and upper-class students Falcon Heights: 646, air-conditioned suite-style rooms, predominantly upperclass students Founders: 654, air-conditioned suite-style rooms, Honors Learning Community, predominantly upper-class students

Self-Identified Demographics of the 2013-2014 Resident Population American Indian / Alaska Native: 47 Asian/ Asian American: 58 Black/African American: 798 Hispanic/Latino: 109 Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander: 8 Not Specified: 199 White: 5003 Men: 2527 Women: 3690

Hall Director Tenure The full-time HD position is an entry level position for Master’s degree-obtained professionals. HDs have a four-year limit on their employment as a HD at BGSU. This ensures the professional development of the HDs, as well as provides the Office with continued fresh and innovative perspectives on residential education.

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RESIDENCE LIFE 470 Math Science Building, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403 419-372-2011 | reslife@bgsu.edu | www.bgsu.edu/housing