Being a Positive Role Model: Video Transcript

Christopher Beecroft [senior major in Biology, Class of 2018]: I am currently a resident assistant in Stanton Hall. This is my third year doing that, same hall I was in freshman year. I'm also a member, a student advisory board member of the Mallory-Wilson Center, which is the pre-med center here on Miami's campus. I'm also a member and former co-vice president and coordinator of service chair for the National Residence Hall Honorary, or NRHH.

We're in there learning how to be better individuals and how to actually treat people who might have different identities than our own. And so I think just being that type of positive role model as an RA, coming in and treating everyone with the respect that everyone deserves and kind of catering to specific needs that they may have on campus, such as from a single parent household or different culture identities that they have special requirements. Just being able to talk with those kids and being able to help them out and plan actual programs that kind of educate the rest of the hall, as well, I feel has been really great.

We’re all at least sophomores and up, so we all have experience, and also the means we can bring in those guest speakers through Mallory-Wilson connections and other students' research panels and everything.

Last year, with the help of Dr. [David] Pennock, who is the actual director of the Mallory-Wilson Center, we were able to bring in Dr. [Anthony] Tizzano, who is an OBGYN from the Cleveland area. He came in during Stanton Hall's what we call Sex Week, where it's sex education, and everything for a whole week of different programs, so that was really great that we could bring him in and also partner with both me being an RA and also a member of the student advisory board, all in one area.

Keeping with, I kind of guess, the residence hall leadership theme was, myself, was when I joined NRHH, which I did my second semester sophomore year. And once I joined that, I immediately went for a leadership position they had open. I became the coordinator of outreach, which means I basically ran our Twitter page and made sure to get all of our members updated in what we were doing with community service programs or recognition events for other people on campus.

I feel my biggest achievement there would be we had the Green Clean, which occurred on St. Patricks Day, where Dr. Renate Crawford also joined us in cleaning up kind of the sidewalks of where student housing is, off-campus kind of near Uptown. So we partnered with Oxford trash pickup, and we collected about 18 bags of trash and litter.

We started study hours last year. Our students were wanting ways to be able to ask questions and kind of get help with intro bio and gen chem, and so two of us would be in the Stanton Hall lobby on Sunday nights from 8 to 9, able to answer questions and help people with homework or studying for classes and, honestly, just answering questions that they may have, so that was a great way of students putting input and getting the desired result.

[January 2018]