Staff training is an integral part of the Residence Life profession. Most of us spend an inordinate amount of time and effort training senior staff, graduate assistants, and student paraprofessionals. As student development educators, our task is to facilitate the overall development of all of our residents. This is accomplished primarily through the various vehicles we employ for staff training.

In a previous article (June 1993), I discussed the relevance of Total Quality Management (TQM) to Residence Life work. Indeed, learning how to appropriately apply Deming's 14 points within the context of residence hall management should be one of our top priorities. Two of Deming's 14 points (6 and 13), relate directly to our responsibilities in the area of staff training. It would be to our ultimate advantage to consider their implications as we go about conceptualizing and implementing staff training programs at our various institutions.

Deming's 13th point involves the need to "INSTITUTE A VIGOROUS PROGRAM OF RE-EDUCATION."

Achieving the goals and objectives of TQM as they relate to staff training will require a substantive revision of the manner in which many within the profession conceptualize their training efforts. As is typically the case with any worthwhile idea or concept, much of what Deming has to say is relatively easy to understand yet difficult to actually put into practice. Staff training which is designed to facilitate total student development mandates a relentless dedication to the central concept of complete and consistent customer (student) satisfaction. Such dedication requires a rather basic shift in the way many Residence Life professionals view their duties and responsibilities as staff trainers.

More specifically, Deming's 6th point entails the inherent obligation to simply "INSTITUTE TRAINING."

Although it can be a very complicated and involved process, there is little doubt that staff training forms the foundation for a successful Residence Life program. And while many departments are doing a very good job in this area, others are seemingly reluctant to devote the time and effort needed to insure that their staffs are sufficiently prepared to facilitate student development.

In far too many instances, staff training consists solely of 1) dispensing technical information, and 2) reacting to situations as they develop. To be truly effective, staff training must transcend these somewhat narrow parameters to include the higher-order decision-making and problem-solving skills necessary to facilitate total customer (student) satisfaction.

What follows is a 2-stage model for implementing a meaningful and effective staff training program that is developmentally oriented and structurally coherent.

First of all, Residence Life professionals must recognize that training inherently entails two different types of learning experiences: Competency Training (CT) and Enhancement Training (ET).

Competency Training consists of instruction in the basic skills necessary for satisfactory functioning in each fundamental area of the Residence Life program. The primary objective of CT is to foster the skills needed to insure that the integrity of the residence hall environment can be successfully maintained when the hall opens at the beginning of the school year. In other words, CT is concerned with insuring minimum acceptable levels of performance.

It is imperative that staff members receive adequate CT in the specific skills associated with each general area of Residence Life work. At the beginning of Fall Semester, for example, it is not absolutely essential that Resident Assistants have a comprehensive understanding of all of the various intricacies associated with judicial affairs. But there are basic competencies related to judicial affairs (such as how to fill out an Incident Report correctly) that all R.A.s should master before their residents arrive on-campus. CT should constitute the bulk of the training conducted at the beginning of the school year.

Once CT has been successfully implemented, a coherent and systematic program of Enhancement Training should then be instituted on a periodic basis throughout the remainder of the year. The primary objective of ET is to insure that the basic skills acquired during the CT phase of staff training are developed to their maximum potential.

The success or failure of ET is related to the quality of the CT instituted previously. Basic competencies must be initially mastered before they can be subsequently enhanced. In order to train staff in higher-order skills such as creative problem-solving and crisis intervention, they must first be well-versed in lower-order skills such as active listening and deductive reasoning. By analogy, it is imperative that staff have a realistic understanding of "the system" as it currently exists before they attempt to make modifications. Difficulties inevitably arise when staff who have not been satisfactorily trained in CT are exposed to ET.

Using these two distinct kinds of learning experiences (CT and ET), staff training can be logically conceptualized as a 2-stage process. During Stage I, competencies are built upward from lower levels in traditional hierarchical fashion. Success (competency) at a higher level assumes success (competency) at lower levels.

Before you can devote quality time and energy to Programming, for example, you must be relatively competent in the skills associated with Floor Development, the Judicial process, etc. If you are a R.A. on a floor which exhibits very little sense of community and an inconsistent adherence to policies and regulations, you probably do not have a great deal of time to spend planning and implementing educational programs.

In Stage II of the process, abilities are qualitatively enhanced downward from higher levels in inverse hierarchical order. Ideally, mastery of upper levels promotes and supports success at lower levels. For instance, success in fostering Professional Development assumes that staff are basically competent in all areas. The focus becomes enhanced development in all areas, both on a personal and an organizational level. Professional Development should have as one of its goals better Programming Skills. One of the primary objectives of Programming Development should be enhanced Floor Development, etc.

This 2-stage model of staff training can be implemented in 6 steps:

1) Identification of specific skills in each Competency area; i.e., skills that every staff member should initially possess.

2) Development and implementation of an initial training program (CT) at the beginning of the year which builds these skills.

3) Evaluation of the success/failure of the training program and institution of any necessary follow-up.

4) Development of an ongoing training program (ET) which serves to enhance these skills to their maximum potential.

5) Identification of specific changes that need to be made in order to benefit the staff both collectively and personally, and identification of specific skills needed to facilitate those changes.

6) Evaluation of the success/failure of this ongoing training program as a means of assessing and addressing future needs.

It should be noted that the basic tenets on which this model is built do not represent any new insights into the development of staff training programs. Much of what has been presented here is already done to some extent at many institutions. There are always advantages, however, to having a formal structure in which to operate. It is much easier to see exactly where you are in relation to your overall goals and objectives, and, as such, it is easier to see where you should be going.

The ultimate goal of all staff training should be the enhancement of quality and, as a result, greater customer (student) satisfaction. In the Residence Life profession, customer satisfaction can be equated with the successful facilitation of total student development. Our efforts in staff training should focus on providing students with the tools they will need to survive and flourish -- not only in the higher education arena, but in the larger society as well. Staff training should have no other purpose.