Food and films help create campus connections

GOSHEN, Ind. – Baking isn’t in her official job description as a resident director (RD) at Goshen College, but Susie Lambright has written it in. She bakes so much that she burns out the motor in her mixer every six months. But she keeps cooking because she has learned it is one very effective means of connecting with college students.

Chad Coleman, another Goshen College RD, is a film aficionado. And he knows that the students in his residence hall love movies too. So a large TV and home entertainment unit in his apartment have made his place a prime campus hang-out.

As veteran RDs for Kratz, Miller and Yoder residence halls – which are primarily home to first and second-year students who are new to living away from home and with their peers – Lambright and Coleman have many responsibilities, but the opportunity to get to know students one-on-one though is what both of them enjoy most.

“It is all about the relationships. Getting to know the students on an individual basis is the stuff that keeps me engaged with my job,” said Lambright, who started in her position at Goshen College in 2001. “I want to be part of their lives and the campus community in ways that matter.” She often attends campus athletic events, theater or music activities, stops by students’ rooms to chat, hangs out in the student-run campus coffee shop, Java Junction, and invites students into her home.

With Lambright, food is central to how she builds community, partly because she comes from a large family that enjoyed eating meals together. “It is a big part of who I am and how I connect with people,” she said. “I like having people around and relating to them around the table. As a single person, I enjoy creating a sense of family in my home and serving people in this way.”

The way Lambright combines cooking and her RD position is really a ministry. “Susie doesn’t just feed our stomachs, she feeds our souls. She wants more than just physical safety for us as students, she also wants to see us alive spiritually,” said Kassidy Cheek, a junior from Franklin, Ind., who serves as an RA.

Lambright has planned pie days, a cake walk (which included one baked by Interim President John Yordy), weekly dinner meetings in her apartment with the six resident assistants (RAs) she supervises in her home, a Cinco de Mayo party and movie nights with tasty homemade snacks. And every other week she hosts a “Supper at Susie’s” night, to try to get to know students who live in the residence halls that she oversees – as many as possible. “Everybody likes to eat and they all like good homecooking,” she said. “By inviting them over, I am able to connect with students that I may not be able to otherwise.”

The gift of food that she keeps serving does not go unnoticed or unappreciated by students either. After going through too many hand mixers because of how much she cooks, the RAs contacted all the students in the residence halls she oversees to contribute money towards buying her a heavy-duty Kitchen Aid mixer for her birthday this spring. “Over 100 students pitched in, which meant so much to me,” she said. “It was a huge surprise and tremendous blessing.”

Cooking isn’t Coleman’s great gift; he enjoys watching movies with others and hosts a monthly cheesecake-and-movie night in his small apartment. When these nights arrive, he hauls out all the furniture in the RD apartment so that the 30-40 students will fit in front of his home entertainment system with big-screen TV. Some students even show up an hour early to get the best seats.

“Chad does his best to make everyone feel welcome on campus,” said Mary Roberts, a sophomore from Dayton, Ohio, who was also an RA in Yoder Hall. “Even if you’ve just met him he’s more than willing to invite you to sit on his big, comfy couch, surrounded by his 6.1 surround-sound system, drinking smoothies and discussing ‘Star Wars.’”

Coleman also enjoys making videos, and each year compiles a tribute for his residence hall – featuring photos that the seven Yoder Hall RAs provide, video he shot throughout the year’s events and of volunteer lip syncers for the soundtrack he chooses. The project gets bigger from year to year, but the main goal is to include all students that live in Yoder Hall in the video and to make it available to them as a keepsake of their lives in the dorm. “It allows me to reflect on the year and remember what happened,” said Coleman, who started his job in 2003.

The job of an RD isn’t all food and films though. It is about building community during good and difficult times, and includes mentoring RAs, staying with students in the midst of medical problems, helping students settle in to the campus community, providing discipline when standards aren’t kept and much more.

Inevitably during the course of a school year, as college students adjust to life away from their parents and learn to make choices for themselves, violations of campus standards occur and it is part of the job of the RDs to be on the front line in responding to a variety of situations. Lambright knows though that the rest of her job of getting to know students personally and helping to build community relates to this task.

“If I can get to know the students and build a relationship with them, then if a violation or other issue arises, they know that we can talk and that I care about them as individuals,” she said. “I am a part of their lives here on campus, so I am not just a faceless name that doles out punishment.

“We make mistakes and we need to learn from them. I work at restoring those relationships as well, but not letting violations define someone as an individual or us as a community.”

As Goshen students recently spent one of their last days on-campus before heading off for the summer in mid-May, they gathered around Lambright, Coleman and fellow RD Alex Naula to receive a brat or veggie burger off the grill before joining in a friendly game of sand volleyball tournament that pitted one residence hall floor against another. The laughter, high-fives, good-natured jesting and smell of summer food filled the air, and the RDs relished in knowing they would be back again next fall to pick up where they left off in the never-ending task of building a college community with the gifts and passions they bring to the job.

Editors: For more information about this release, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a four-year residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.