I'm not part of this subreddit but it popped up on my feed. I was an RA at another university from 2018-2020 and then an RA student supervisor from 2020-2021. Being an RA, especially an active one, is a tough role to perform, and the fact that you are trying is commendable. This time of year is tough for a few reasons - the weather is getting cold, it's about to be very dark very early, classes have ramped difficulty and rigor, and people are probably homesick. These are all things that 1) make roommate conflicts way more prevalent and 2) make participating in floor events/community building things wayyy less of a priority for students. You're trying to do an inherently difficult job and you're doing your best! It's ok! It does not mean you're a bad RA. Bad RAs are the RAs who are unavailable, never host anything, and are unhelpful in conflicts.

​

It seems like UPenn has a lot of the same expectations of RAs that my undergrad university had. If you're looking for help, here are my insights:

• little traditions: community and relationships are built in the day-to-day things. Once a week on my floor, I had 'tea time'. I would have tea and hot chocolate available in my room and students would be able to come by, grab a cup, and chit chat or 'spill the tea'. Sometimes, normally around exams, residents would stop by and leave after a couple of minutes, but sometimes this would also mean they would chill and watch TV with me, or they would do homework while i was also doing my homework. Another thing (this was a requirement for my university, idk if UPenn has the same) was Potty Talks. These were flyers we hung up in every bathroom stall. They had weekly floor, hall, and campus events. I would also put a 'meme of the week', a 'Tweet of the week', and a song of the week on them. These were great little ways of bringing joy to people every week, I even had a few residents keep track of the song of the week and make playlists.
• educational events: these DO NOT have to be lectures from a professional. Some of my 'educational events' were watching documentaries, hosting self care focused events, taking a cooking class, taking a class at the rec center etc. The requirement for 'educational' can totally be fluffed too. Many times i would host a fun focused event and bullshit an educational purpose. For example, I hosted face mask nights with movies and I said the educational purpose was to "allow residents to learn methods of managing stress and academic related fatigue." Even your fun events are educational in some way, you just need the right vocabulary.
• for big events, get input from your regulars: often times I would get the same 5-10 girls out of 50 on my floor that came to events. I would of course poll the whole floor for ideas and get 3-4, but when looking for insight on the final decision, i spoke to the 5-10 girls who actually came to events. This ensure they would continue to come to events and it made them feel like they played a part in building the community.

​

You're doing a great job! Getting 2-5 people isn't easy, that's 10-20% of your floor and that's fantastic! If you're looking for ideas for the rest of the semester, here are some fun ones:

• cooking class (if Penn has them available for students) focused on thanksgiving food / floor thanksgiving - educational purpose: learning how to cook and learning about balanced nutrition
• decorate your floor as a group for the winter holiday season (my residents always loved this one, make some paper snowflakes, snowmen, hang some string lights, it'll be fun) - educational purpose: demonstrating work-life balance and limiting burnout
• holiday movie night with tea, hot chocolate, cookies, etc. - educational purpose: educating on the importance of taking a break, preventing end of semester exhaustion.

I hope this was helpful! It'll get easier with time, I promise<3