RC Vacancy Statistics and Updates

Since 2019, IMSA has seen all-time high vacancy rates for Residence Counselors (RCs) across every hall. Before 2019, there were rarely any vacancies, with an average of one monthly vacancy, lasting around a single month. A monthly vacancy is counted as the absence of one RC in one month, while a yearly vacancy is the absence of one RC in one year. But these problems skyrocketed during the COVID-19 lockdown, beginning in 2019  and persisting into 2022. Due to online learning as well as health and safety regulations, this spike in vacancies is logical, since RCs weren’t managing many students on campus and needed to keep themselves safe by staying at home, but since the 2021-22 school year, when IMSA switched out of remote learning, the community’s need for RCs increased dramatically. Despite the demand, the RC shortage persevered for that year, with 59 monthly vacancies, just 2 less than last year. The effect of this many RC vacancies was a more unstable living situation as some wings of halls were left unattended to and forced the other RCs to manage one or even two extra wings at some points in a hall. 

The 2021-22 school year was one of the hardest for RCs to manage, especially in 1505 and 1503 which had the most monthly vacancies per hall, and forced RCs to frequently manage multiple wings. While COVID regulations did contribute to the pressure on RCs during these staff shortages, in some cases, the absence of inter-visitation allowed for fewer incidents from other halls or wings. However, these regulations also required RCs to invest energy in enforcing safety measures for entire halls. Statistically, this year proved to be the most demanding for IMSA as a whole, but when examining individual halls, the 2022-23 school year emerged as even more challenging. Unlike the previous two years, the majority of COVID restrictions were lifted this year, and inter-visitation was reinstated in some halls. However, this posed a challenge for halls like 1502 and 1504, which did not see improvements in vacancy rates. Both 1502 and 1504 experienced the same number of monthly vacancies as the previous year, but 1504B also endured a full-year vacancy. This situation left RCs Rafael Gonzalez, Ethan Castro, and Kylie Marsden to manage an additional wing. These RCs frequently had to address incidents of all sizes in this wing due to the lack of supervision, and they expressed their concerns about maintaining the extra wing. They described the experience as new, but they adopted a divide-and-conquer approach to meet the challenge, as other strategies like having an RC alternate covering the wing proved to be too exhausting. Comparing this to the campus-wide success, with some halls like 1507 returning to 0 vacancies, it’s evident that there are noticeable fluctuations. Therefore, examining individual halls is essential to fully understand the unique challenges faced by RCs in this new environment.

This graph demonstrates the data explained above, showing that 04 and 02 lead the 2022-23 school year in vacancies. However, it also compares the immense increase in vacancies since COVID-19 with the previous years visually. Typically, the vacancies of previous years were a result of leaves, which resulted in brief periods without an RC that were far more manageable. 

This chart tells a similar story to the monthly shortages, however, the key difference is how there were no year-long shortages prior to COVID, meaning RCs adjusting to this period struggled to keep up, especially with no prior experience. Another significant statistic to analyze is the length of gaps between hires prior to the COVID outbreak and how they compare now. Data from the Historical RC Record shows that nearly all of the replacements for RCs were planned or immediate, while the years after COVID show that RC replacements took as long as an entire year, indicating the difficulty of getting new hires. 

The 2023-24 school year is seeing progress where IMSA as a whole is reducing vacancies, but individual halls are still varying. This year, 1505 is starting without an RC for D-wing, and it is uncertain whether there will be an addition, but historical data shows that in the last two years, this hall has suffered from at least one vacancy for multiple months. Similar to 1504, RCs Cameron Doxey, Caela Gnutek, and Shane Cowsert are using a divide-and-conquer approach for the remaining wing, but there has already been a tiresome week where only two RCs managed the entire hall (although recently, 05 has seen great improvement with the vacancy filled by the new RC, Ricky Rodriguez) These smaller vacancies are an improvement over large gaps in the school year. Overall, RC shortages have maintained a declining trend since the 2020-21 school year featuring record vacancies, which is beneficial to IMSA’s campus as a whole but for halls and wings depends on their individual success in vacancies.