Students returning to residence at Innis College next year can expect to see an increased number of faces in leadership: the number of residence dons is set to increase from seven to eleven, beginning in the fall term of 2019. With the current system, each don is assigned to one ‘house’ in the residence, with houses varying in size. The Office of Student Life (OSL) hopes to even out the distribution of dons to residents by the next school year, anticipating that this will bring various benefits to both the residents and the student staff.

The goal is to achieve a don-to-resident ratio of approximately 1 to 30; current numbers rest at about 1 to 55. This will be accomplished by adding an additional don to every house except First House, which already enjoys a 1 to 30 ratio. The OSL recognizes that a smaller don-to-resident ratio enables student staff to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships with the residents that they are responsible for, and hopes to use First House as a model moving forward. In many of the larger houses, getting to know students on an individual level poses a considerable challenge for the singular assigned don.

With the increase in numbers will come an additional alteration to the current don system: there are no plans to hire a Transition and Support Don for the upcoming school year. The role of the Transition and Support Don was originally designed with Engineering and International students in mind, in recognition of those student communities’ distinct needs. Rather than retaining it as a separate position, the College is looking to instead equip the entire team of dons to fulfill those responsibilities and thus broaden the accessibility of support services.

The Herald spoke with Steve Masse, who was responsible for initiating the expansion, to learn more about the motivations behind the increase in dons. Masse came to Innis from a previous role at Woodsworth College, and is currently serving his first year as Innis’s Dean of Students.

The change comes after Masse conducted an “environmental scan” of other student residences across campus, as well as other housing organizations across Canada and the United States. Alongside this, he engaged in extensive conversations with current don staff about potential areas of improvement, as well as what works well within the current scope of their roles. “It became apparent that there was an opportunity here for us to increase the level of support and service that we provide to students living in residence,” he said, as well as “increase the number of leadership opportunities for students who are looking to work on campus and build skills.”

Current don responsibilities include holding office hours, facilitating house meetings, and serving on-call should emergencies involving residents occur. Masse expects that in some ways, the increase in staff will entail a redistribution of these responsibilities—but he also sees it as a welcome opportunity to advance initiatives and become more responsive to residents’ various needs.

Such an increase in responsibilities may not be as viable with a team of the current size. The role of a don is intended to be manageable for a student with a full-time course load, and the OSL is carefully attentive to keeping it so. “The level of support we’ve been working to provide in residence has really evolved in the last ten fifteen years, as we’ve seen an increase in mental health difficulties and supports that students require, and we want to make sure that we’re able to meet that need as best we can. But a student still has a lot of courses, and they’re often involved on campus, so the increase in the size of the team will allow for some responsibilities to be distributed across a bigger pool of student staff. For example, on call responsibilities will likely decrease.

“What I’m most interested in—and these are conversations that are ongoing with students and our current don team—are what students want to see. We’ll be using that to guide how we proceed next year with adding new programs.”

As for what this entails regarding current first-years who sent applications in for the position, Masse is optimistic. “Given the new structure, I’m thinking creatively about how we might be able to utilize those teams, those co-dons, perhaps [placing] someone who is maybe a third or fourth year student with someone who might be a little bit younger. Now that’s not going to be a hard rule, but I think that there’s an opportunity for that.”

“So first year students who will be second year students should absolutely consider applying, and I think there’s definitely an appetite and an interest to hire the best folks for this job, regardless of their year of study.”

“I’m really excited to have a new crew of folks on the team next year. I think this year, based on some early signals, it seems like we’re going to be hiring a significant number of new folks to the team, which is always exciting.”

“I think this change is something we should all be excited about. And we’re certainly open to feedback. With any change, there’s always going to be bumps in the road and things we can improve on, but our team, here in the office, is really focused on hearing from students about how things are evolving, I think we’ll be able to head off any of those and get to something that really works well.”

Sarah Tran, a first-year in residence thinks the increase in leadership will bring the Innis community closer together, in a way that the current system can make challenging. She’s also hopeful it will bring better hiring prospects: “There are obviously more positions open, and also it divides the workload. Going into a position as a don, you’re not expecting to be so overwhelmed.”

Daniel Li, who serves as President of the Innis Residence Council, is likewise looking forward to seeing the change implemented. “I’m strongly in support of it, solely because of the fact that the resources for dons are now going to be split up such that each don can now manage a fewer amount of students, and so they can spend more time knowing those students.”

“Because there are now 11 dons, I’d definitely like to see more representation in terms of our don makeup. Last year we had six dons; only one of them is a person of colour. Five of them were not. As far as the three years that I’ve been here, I don’t think I’ve seen a single don that has been an international student. In the past we’ve had an international don as a position, but it’s never been an international student. It’s always been somebody from Canada, or within the province that has supported international student without knowing the experiences of being an international student. I think it’s a good thing to have 11 dons and potentially have greater diversity there, to serve a diverse population at the residence.”