Jay Severson’s job at Purdue University was resident adviser, a storied position at colleges that in the past called to mind the alternately avuncular and gruff grad student who lived in a dorm and kept watch over often unkempt, bleary-eyed, raucous freshmen on their own for the first time.
Called RAs for short, the peer advisers always have had a varied role as friend, confidant, counselor, referee and disciplinarian. In the past, the last role might have meant enforcing a midnight curfew or breaking up a squabble in the shower. And retaliation seldom went beyond a kick on the RA’s door.
At mid-afternoon Wednesday, the modern complexity of the job emerged with tragic vividness when Severson was shot and killed in his dorm room by a freshman he had reported to university police after discovering him with what he referred to as a “significant” amount of cocaine in his room Tuesday night.
After the shooting, the student, 18-year-old Jarrod Eskew of Crawfordsville, Ind., went to his room and committed suicide with the 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun he had carried under his overcoat before killing Severson.
University officials characterized the murder-suicide as an anomaly. But at a time of rising violence, drug and alcohol use on college campuses, the Purdue shooting is raising questions among some college residence administrators and RAs about the contemporary nature of the job, especially when it comes to enforcing the law.
“These (RAs) feel like the great working relationship they have with students–that there is a new sense of threat,” said Clint Gabbard, a Purdue psychologist who counseled students and RAs alike following the shooting. “This isn’t supposed to happen.”
In reporting to campus police a violation of the law, Severson did exactly as he was trained to do, said Purdue’s housing director, John Sautter.
“With drugs, our counselors (RAs) are instructed to always call the campus police as quickly as possible,” Sautter said.
That is the policy at other schools with large housing units, such as the University of Michigan, where a security guard is stationed in each residence hall.
Interviews with students at Purdue indicate confrontations over disciplinary actions between students and resident advisers–or counselors, as they are known at Purdue–are nothing new.
Severson, 27, whom friends described as a devout Christian, had had trouble with other students.
“It’s happened many times before,” said Ryan Roeder, 24, a Purdue graduate student who called Severson his best friend. “That’s what’s freaking all the counselors right now. To be honest, they get threatened all the time.”
Tuesday night, Severson, who was checking smoke alarm batteries on his floor, saw Eskew, a former high school track team member, in his room cutting a quantity of cocaine, according to Joseph Bennett, vice president for university relations.
Severson, who last month reported Eskew’s roommate for marijuana possession, went straight to campus police. They notified a regional drug force. Meanwhile, Eskew disappeared–until his fatal reappearance Wednesday on the RA’s doorstep.
“I think (the Purdue murder) will lead to a very critical discussion,” said Rosanne Proite, residential life director at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “I’ve been talking with my colleagues at Big Ten institutions. We are meeting next week, and I know it will be a topic of discussion.”
In the meantime, Bennett said the 10-day training program for RAs at Purdue will be reviewed in light of Wednesday’s tragedy.
With free room and board, often free tuition as in the case at Purdue, and a yearly stipend–$750 at Purdue–the job is considered a prize for financially struggling students.
But the list of problems they confront has expanded: date rape, drugs, alcohol, violence, stress, immaturity, lack of socialization, racism, homophobia, bulimia, and what some residence hall administrators say is a growing incidence of emotional problems.
“In the old days, it was a great job,” Proite said. “It’s harder now. There is a whole lot more on their plate.”
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Drugs and violence are taking up a bigger piece of that plate.
A national study of crime on campus issued in April by the Chronicle of Higher Education found a 23 percent increase in arrests for drug and alcohol law violations on campuses in 1994, the most recent year analyzed. They also found a 26.3 percent increase in homicide, the largest increase for any campus crime.
Colleges and universities have varying policies for their RAs in reporting drug use or possession. Some practice a tacit don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.
On many campuses, a buffer is placed between the RA and the law-breaking student. The RA reports drug violations to a full-time administrative staff member, who has the responsibility of calling the police.
“It’s not my duty or my position to do that (report a crime to police) at all,” said Grace Byun, an RA at Claremont College near Los Angeles. “I would turn the information over to the hall director, a staff person.”
The same is true at Northern Illinois University in De Kalb.
“Their role is not to be one of police officer–and certainly not to put themselves in harm’s way,” said Willard Draper, assistant director of residential life at NIU.
But at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, RAs are instructed to call police.
“Where there is an obvious violation of the law, you really have an obligation to bring it to someone’s attention,” said Gary Schwarzmueller, director of the Association of College and University Housing Officers in Columbus, Ohio.
“When you live on a floor with people, you see things, just walking by an open door, things present themselves to you,” Schwarzmueller said. “But that is where the difference is: Do you handle it within your own housing system, or do you call the police?
“The severity of the violation really dictates how you go about doing it.”
Others are concerned about the growing disciplinary role that RAs–most only a few years older than their undergraduate charges–are being called upon to play in general.
“I think we have questions back and forth about what we believe the RA’s role should be as it relates to disciplinary actions,” said Karen Feldbaum, associate director for residence life at Pennsylvania State University. “Do we need to bring in professional people to respond to disciplinary problems?”
Feldbaum said she considers the murder-suicide at Purdue an extreme case, “but I hope it’s not a sign of things to come.”
At Purdue, a conservative campus largely of engineering, computer science and technology majors, RAs must be at least 21. Like Severson, about one-third are graduate students.
Severson, a graduate student in sports physiology, was one of 16 RAs in Wiley Hall. Roeder, who met Severson in 1991, said Severson told him RAs approached the job in one of two ways: The military camp approach, or the friendly approach. He chose the latter.
“He would truly befriend the people on the floor,” Roeder said, adding that Severson taught a Bible class in Wiley Hall. “You had a respect for him, because you knew he cared about you.”
The impact of Severson’s death is keenly felt by his fellow RAs at Purdue.
Michael Miltenberger, 22, is convinced Severson acted responsibly but believes RAs should have some safeguards.
Severson reported directly to a staff resident in the hall–except in cases of criminal violations such as drug possession.
“If I encountered a student using drugs in his room . . . in light of recent events, I would definitely talk to either the assistant manager or staff resident,” said Miltenberger, whose father, a former dean of residence life at Indiana State University, wrote a widely used training manual for RAs.
“I’m sure the decision would come to calling the police,” he said, “but I think we would discuss more my safety, and what I would do next.”