Student Staff Behavior Guidelines

As a student staff member in the Department of Housing and Residence Life at CSUF, you have a significant responsibility and privilege to serve as a role model and a leader for our campus, within your community and to our residential student population as a whole. It is our intention as housing professional staff to provide you with the skills, knowledge base and support needed to facilitate your success in this role.

One of the most challenging aspects of being a student staff member is determining how choices you make or behaviors you engage in can impact your work and the residential community. Because being a role model and a leader has no “start time or end time” you are expected to consider your role in your decision making process. While we respect and value individual differences, we recognize that your behavior and choices impact both your effectiveness as a leader and role model and our ability as a housing program to serve our students effectively.

To that end, we wanted to provide you with some guidelines that can assist you as you make those choices over the course of your employment. Ultimately, be aware that if at any time your behavior on or off “the job” negatively impacts the residents/and or your effectiveness as a staff member, we will need to evaluate your continued employment as a housing staff member.

Below you will find a list of behaviors, which we would caution you not to engage in while serving as an employee in Housing and Residence Life. Such behavior, in our opinion, reflects poorly on you, your ability to serve as a leader and role model in housing.

• Other than self-defense, at no time should you engage in a physical altercation. While we hope you never find yourself in a situation that requires you to defend yourself from harm, you are not to participate in any physical altercations. Engaging in verbal altercations also undermines your ability to be a role model and leader.

• You are expected to abide by all university policies at all times. Under no circumstances is it acceptable for you to provide or purchase alcohol for underage residents or to consume or possess alcohol if you are less than 21 years of age. In addition we will have no tolerance for the use, possession, production, growing or sale of illegal substances.

• If a fellow student or community member alleges that you engaged in sexual misconduct, we may suspend you from your position while we investigate the allegations.

• We expect you to take the responsibilities of your position seriously. If you intentionally misuse or are neglectful in your use of keys, are intoxicated while performing official duties, fail to respond when on duty, or violate any other terms of your position, you may be sanctioned or dismissed from employment.

One of your responsibilities, as a role model and employee of Housing and Residence Life, is to behave in a manner reflective of our organization’s values while in the complex, on campus or in posting on-line material. We ask that you keep in mind that your purpose as a student staff member is to enhance and facilitate the development of our residential community and students. There can be no tolerance for behaviors that endanger the safety and security of our residents and/or raise liability concerns, such as those listed above. A decision to engage in these behaviors is likely to result in termination from your position as a housing employee.

While this list is in no way exhaustive, we do hope it will help you think about the behaviors you engage in and the choices you may make while in a position as a leader and role model in Housing and Residence Life. We take your role and the impact you have on our campus, the community and students very seriously. We ask that you do the same and recognize the potential you have to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the students we serve.

2/28/06