About

UCLA Residential Life creates safe, supportive, and inclusive living-learning communities that engage residents in the fostering of their academic success, personal growth, leadership development, and social responsibility.

The Core 5 (Goal Areas)

Support the Academic Mission

As a student-centered department within the residential community, Residential Life is in a unique position to support university strategies to carry out the academic mission. We initiate, facilitate, and encourage programs, classes, and services that enhance and support students’ academic success. We partner with academic departments to deliver programs and resources to residents. Our faculty programs strengthen students’ learning and promote intellectual discourse.

Cultivate Safe Environments

We consider physical and emotional safety foundational to a productive living- learning environment for all those who live and work in the residential community. We maintain an active and responsive presence within our buildings and provide programs which educate residents about individual and community safety. We develop intentional relationships with students, staff, faculty, and parents based on respectful and supportive interactions. We work to enhance the emotional well-being of our community members and to ensure that all members of our diverse community feel included, respected, valued, and celebrated.

Encourage Personal Growth

We believe education encompasses opportunities for learning, personal development, and critical thought, both in and out of the classroom. We encourage students to invest in their personal development through informal conversations, structured dialogues, reflection, and participating in programs. We promote and provide structures and processes that empower students to evaluate their actions, explore their values and ethics, and to understand the impact of their decisions. We offer programs and services for students to explore new ideas, new understandings, new skills, and their identity.

Foster Social Responsibility

We promote responsible citizenship. We encourage students to take ownership of their actions that impact their peers, their communities, and the world. We provide educational programs that emphasize community involvement, promote service, and support activism. As members of an ever-changing, dynamic community, we believe in creating, maintaining, and advocating for a socially just environment.

Develop Leaders

As a student-centered department within the residential community, Residential Life is in a unique position to support the university mission in educating generations of leaders. We believe that all students can practice leadership, and must have leadership skills to succeed in a fast-changing world. We provide resources and opportunities for students to explore and develop their leadership skills, in and out of the classroom. We challenge students to consider their role in affecting change individually and collectively. We motivate students to affect positive change as leaders, in both a local and global context.

Standards of Service (Values)

With Safety in Mind

We cultivate a safe environment that imparts both physical and emotional security. We regularly evaluate our decisions, actions, and strategies to mitigate and respond to conditions within or surrounding the Housing communities that may jeopardize the physical security, property, or well-being, of students, staff, and faculty.

From a Developmental Perspective

We consider that all aspects of our work can be carried out as opportunities for learning, personal development, and critical thought. When we communicate with students, staff, faculty, and parents, we strive to educate and inform our stakeholders about our practices and advocate for student-centered approaches to build dynamic living/learning communities.

As Responsible Stewards

We ensure that our work is ethical in nature, legal in practice, effective in outcome, responsible in use of resources, and transparent to others. We strive to discover and achieve what is in the best interest of our communities and constituents through continual evaluation of our practices and programs.

With Respect for Others

We approach our work with students, staff, faculty, and parents with genuine care and concern for one another. We strive to convey that care in our interactions, we assume that others are acting with positive intent, and we do our best to act with positive intent. We employ professional ethics in our communications and our work, and strive for an organizational culture that is empathic, compassionate and fair.

From a Social Justice Paradigm

We are committed to a socially just environment. It is central to a healthy and dynamic community. We look at our work through multiple perspectives, while balancing the interests of the individual and the community. We strive to provide equal access to resources, services, and programs for all members of our community. We actively work to eliminate disparity, ignorance, and intolerance, and we advocate for those who come to our community with less power and influence in the broader society.

With Accountability

We expect all members of our team to be dependable and dedicated to accomplishing our core functions in order to achieve our mission. We practice persistence and follow-through in completing our tasks. We honor the commitments we make. We approach our work thoughtfully, provide defensible rationale for our actions and decisions, and adhere to University policy. In all our efforts, we hold ourselves accountable to the Core 5 values.

With Regard for Research and Theory

We use assessment, research, and theory to inform the foundation of our operations. We strive to incorporate student and community development theories to ground, influence, and direct our work with students in areas including academic development, personal growth and development, leadership, and community development.