Advice
Preparing Your Student for Conflict
By Morgan Levy, assistant dean of students and director of the Center for Student Conflict Management
It is inevitable that at some point in your student's career at the University of Rochester he or she will become involved in a conflict. This conflict may take the shape of a miscommunication about what exactly the job responsibilities are for a "vice president" in a student organization or a dispute about the distribution of work in a group work project.
While we certainly can't predict exactly what type of scenario will lead to your student's first conflict, we do know that most students' first conflicts occur while navigating the social dynamics of living in the residence halls.
Living in a group setting is a new experience for most first time U of R students. There are obvious limitations to the type of space, privacy and control over environment many students experienced in their lives before college. In addition, there is an amazingly diverse population of students living on each hall. Each student on a floor is interacting in the world from the perspective of their own values and experiences. It is unquestionable that in this dynamic environment there will be times when a room or floor mate on your student's hall will do or say something that will create conflict between residents.
How your student initially responds when a conflict arises can have a huge impact on how quickly and effectively a long term resolution to the problem can be established. With this in mind, we encourage you to help prepare your students for these conflicts, now, before they arrive on campus.
1. Talk to your student about her expectations about her living environment:
- What time does she think it is reasonable for it to be quiet on the hall every night?
- What are her feelings about sharing food or clothing with roommates?
- How will she handle it if her roommates do not share the same expectations?
2. Ask your student to begin to think about how he will respond when negatively impacted by another resident's words or actions:
- Does he plan to address issues immediately after they happen or take time to think about how to respond?
- Will he send a short e-mail or text message to the offending student or attempt to talk to the student face to face?
- Has he thought about how things like tone of voice and body posture can affect how the conversation goes?
Having these conversations is an important first step to helping prepare your student for conflict. That being said, even after you talk with your student about these issues they will likely still need help dealing with conflict once they arrive on campus. The U of R provides a number of resources designed to both prevent and resolve conflicts.
Roommate Agreements
At the beginning of every year, students living in the same room or suite are given a roommate agreement form. This form asks students to sit down together and discuss how they will live together. It covers issues ranging from when lights should be turned off at night in the room to what the term "clean" means. The act of filling out this form together allows for roommates to engage in a discussion about their expectations before a problem arises.
Residential Life Staff
Resident Advisors
Resident Advisors (RAs), are upper-class students who live on each floor and are a wonderful resource for helping students address existing conflicts. All RAs are trained in various skills, including conflict coaching. Conflict coaching involves helping individuals identify conflict management strategies appropriate for their specific situation and that can be implemented without the assistance of a third party. If your student is involved in a conflict, visiting the RA on his or her floor is a good first step to resolving the matter.
Residential Life Professional Staff
The professional staff members who oversee RAs also serve as resources for students involved in a conflict. While, your student's RA is a good first place to start, if the issue isn't resolved after that first conversation with the RA, asking to speak with the Area Coordinator for your student's building is a good next step. All residential life professional staff have been trained in mediation and other conflict resolution processes.
Mediators
Mediation is a process that aims to assist parties in defining the issues that lead to a conflict and create solutions for that conflict on their own. The mediator helps enable the parties to see and understand the other person's point of view so that together they can move past the issues and create an agreement for how to better interact in the future. Whether an agreement results or not, and whatever the content of that agreement, the participants themselves determine. Mediations are a useful tool for resolving disputes involving one or two parties that have not yet risen to a level where disciplinary action may result.
There are a number of faculty, staff and students that are trained as mediators within the University of Rochester community. To be connected with a mediator your student can contact the Center for Student Conflict Management by phone at 585-275-4085 or by e-mail at conflict.management@rochester.edu.
Center for Student Conflict Management (CSCM) Staff
The CSCM is an area within the Office of the Dean of Students that assists students in the development of conflict resolution skills. Staff members within the CSCM can speak with any student experiencing a conflict to provide guidance, training or to facilitate mediation or other conflict resolution process. You can reach the CSCM by phone at 585-275-4085 or by e-mail at conflict.management@rochester.edu.
When used, these resources allow for students to effectively engage in the conflict before them and assist them in developing skills to better handle conflict in the future.
