Behind the Duty Phone
(Jenell Theobald/The Santa Clara)
Swig Residence Hall has long carried a reputation as one of Santa Clara University’s highest-incident communities. Yet, despite the disproportionate emotional labor, crisis response and behavioral intervention required of its student staff, Swig’s community facilitators, or CFs, receive the same compensation and institutional expectations as those working in far less demanding halls.
We have the same role, but completely different realities.
Student staff in Swig are expected to navigate repeated intoxication incidents, emotional crises, verbal hostility and overnight medical emergencies at a frequency that fundamentally changes the nature of the role itself. This goes far beyond “building community.” In Swig, active crisis response is the norm.
This reality became clear for one CF who was repeatedly screamed at and called degrading names by a resident during an overnight incident. Even though a Campus Safety officer stood less than six feet away, they failed to intervene. Professional staff later apologized, but the incident left the CF terrified to go on duty and unable to even walk past the floor where it occurred. They considered resigning entirely, but ultimately felt they would rather endure verbal harassment than lose the housing tied to the position.
Many Swig community facilitators described feeling similarly unsupported during incidents where assistance was expected to be critical. One CF recalled an incident in which they felt specifically targeted by residents, yet Campus Safety declined to write a report or review available camera footage despite repeated requests. After significant back-and-forth, only limited information was provided. For the community facilitator, the incident reinforced a broader concern that issues voiced by student staff are not always taken seriously. One CF from outside Swig stated that in many incidents, Campus Safety is often among the last to arrive, sometimes after student EMS responders have already begun providing care.
This dynamic is further complicated by the structure of Residence Life itself. During duty nights, community facilitators are the first point of contact and often the only staff physically present in the building. While professional staff remain available through a chain of escalation, CFs are the ones responding to incidents, assessing situations, and making immediate decisions.
In theory, community facilitators are encouraged to contact professional staff when needed. In practice, many Swig staff members described hesitating to do so during fast-moving situations. In incidents involving intoxication, medical emergencies,or residents attempting to leave the scene, every minute matters. Pausing to make multiple calls can feel impractical when immediate action is required, and by the time professional staff arrive, the situation is often already resolved. As a result, student staff often feel expected to manage increasingly complex situations by themselves while receiving inconsistent support from the systems designed to assist them.
One McLaughlin-Walsh Residence Hall community facilitator expressed a similar frustration, arguing that much of the direct responsibility for incident response falls on student staff. Community facilitators are often the first to arrive, the ones making immediate decisions and the ones staying up late to complete incident reports long after most of campus has gone to sleep.
Compensation Inequities Relative to Responsibilities
Until this academic year, some lower-incident residence halls operated with only one CF on duty each night. Swig never had that flexibility. Because two CFs were required each night, Swig staff collectively had to cover roughly twice as many duty assignments as halls that operated under a one-person duty model. Also in some residence halls, a “primary CF” handled most active responsibilities while the “secondary CF” acted largely in support. In Swig, both CFs functioned as primary responders simultaneously.
The disparity extends beyond duty expectations. Swig CFs support resident communities twice the size of those in other residence halls while receiving identical compensation. In fact, because Swig housing costs less than housing in many other residence halls, Swig CFs receive less room-and-board compensation despite carrying substantially greater operational and emotional responsibilities.
If Residence Life is committed to equity among student staff, compensation should reflect workload rather than title alone. The number of residents assigned per community facilitator, the frequency of duty shifts and the volume and severity of incidents responded to should all be considered when determining compensation. Potential solutions could include additional stipends, compensation for desk shifts and break coverage, or supplemental compensation that offsets disparities in room-and-board benefits. While no single solution will eliminate every inequity, continuing to compensate for vastly different workloads as though they are identical ignores the reality of the role.
Calls for additional compensation are also not unique to Swig. One community facilitator from McLaughlin-Walsh noted that many universities provide CFs with stipends in addition to housing and meal benefits. At minimum, if desk assistants are compensated for staffing residence hall desks, community facilitators should be as well. CFs perform many of the same front-desk responsibilities while also carrying the additional responsibilities of rounds, incident response, crisis management and overnight duty.
Despite these disparities, leaving is not a realistic option for many student staff. Several CFs have explained that the role is their only financial way to remain on campus. While others may be able to step away from Residence Life if the workload becomes overwhelming, students who rely on the position for housing feel trapped. The job becomes completely nonnegotiable because their stability depends on it.
Insufficient Crisis Intervention and Mental Health Training
Many incidents within Swig extend far beyond what most people imagine when they think of student leadership.
One CF recalled being awakened at 6 a.m. by Campus Safety and was asked to respond to a student experiencing a severe mental health crisis. Another was asked to make a judgment call about whether a resident required emergency mental health intervention, only for that resident to attempt suicide moments later. Beyond Swig, a community facilitator from Dunne similarly described supporting a resident through a late-night mental health crisis. The resident wanted a familiar face, a safe space and someone they trusted. As a result, community facilitators often become the default responders to situations they were never fully trained to handle.
“We should not expect people who are 18-19 years old to be effective in mental health response,” CF Sam Hallstrom ’26 explained.
Other incidents further illustrate how blurred the boundaries of the role have become. During one overnight duty shift, a CF was asked to assist an intoxicated resident in the shower following a severe medical incident involving human waste contamination. While CFs are expected to support residents, moments like these raise important questions about where the responsibilities of student staff should reasonably end.
The inconsistency extends beyond crisis response itself. Certain procedures and expectations have effectively become “Swig knowledge” because those incidents occur so frequently there. If Residence Life considers these responsibilities part of the community facilitator role, then every CF should be familiar with the same protocols and expectations, regardless of which building they are assigned to.
The emotional toll of repeated crisis response is difficult to bear, and campus resources offer little relief. CFs have attempted to seek therapy support after difficult duty nights, only to struggle accessing available appointments. Swig CF Alex Gonzalez ’25 explained, “We really need more mental health crisis management. The resources on campus don’t really do much because they can’t.”
Trained mental health professionals should be more directly involved in that response process. Residence Life maintains on-duty systems for community facilitators and professional staff, yet no comparable system exists for mental health professionals. The University should explore creating a more accessible on-duty structure for Therapists in Residence or other mental health staff so that students in crisis can receive support from trained professionals rather than relying primarily on student staff.
Until then, community facilitators remain responsible for navigating situations that can carry life-altering consequences.
“You can turn in your homework late,” CF Hannah Yonkers-Talz ’27 said, “but you can’t respond late to a resident who’s unconscious or choking on their own vomit. Sometimes seconds matter.”
Yonkers-Talz went on to describe how the weight of potentially life-threatening situations fundamentally changes how student staff approach the role: “When you’re dealing with people’s lives, of course you’re going to prioritize resident safety over schoolwork,” they said. “But that’s also not what being a community facilitator is supposed to be about. We really have no room for mistakes or to learn from mistakes, we don’t get that flexibility.”
While Residence Life frequently reminds CFs that they are “students first,” the severity of incidents makes that distinction nearly impossible to uphold in practice. When someone’s life may be at risk, schoolwork inevitably becomes secondary.
Burnout and Sustainability Concerns
The emotional toll of constant incidents means many Swig CFs feel unable to mentally disconnect even while off duty. Being a college student in itself is difficult, and leadership adds to this, but having to essentially police people that are the same age as you is emotionally draining. CFs are forced into an impossible balance, acting as an authority figure over peers their own age while trying to protect their own reputations as students. They must constantly calculate how to be a relatable peer while working an intense job without becoming isolated or hated by the community they live in. It is a grueling cycle to be up until 3 a.m. dealing with incidents, writing reports until dawn, and still being expected to show up and function for an 8 a.m. class.
Back-to-back duty nights and repeated crises have led to severe burnout, with several CFs describing their mental health actively worsening while living and working in Swig. What frustrates student staff most is that these concerns are not new.
One community facilitator outside of Swig recalled meeting with Residence Life leadership to discuss concerns they felt deserved serious attention. Instead, the conversation felt surprisingly casual, reinforcing a perception that student staff are often expected to take these issues more seriously than the people responsible for addressing them.
Several CFs in other residence halls also noted that jokes about Swig's workload and incident volume surface often during formation and all-staff meetings. While these remarks may be harmless in intent, they also signal an awareness of the challenges Swig staff face.
That perception extends beyond Swig itself. Community facilitators from Dunne, McLaughlin-Walsh and other residence halls independently acknowledged that Swig staff shoulder some of the most demanding responsibilities in Residence Life. One described Swig as having “the absolute worst” duty experience on campus, while another noted that although community facilitators technically perform the same duties, Swig staff often carry a significantly heavier burden in practice.
The frustration is not that leadership knows about the problem, it is that little seems to change because of it.
“It feels like everyone knows Swig CFs are doing extra work,” Yonkers-Talz explained, “but nothing really changes despite many conversations. When it comes to actual action, we’re still expected to go above and beyond without additional support or compensation. Right now, the system feels reactive instead of proactive, like we’re waiting for something really bad to happen before meaningful changes are made.”
For many CFs the experience feels like a parent repeatedly promising their child they will “talk about it later,” only for the conversation to continuously be pushed aside. Over time, this level of emotional labor stops being an individual problem and becomes a structural one. A residential community cannot sustainably rely on burnout as its operating model.
Conclusion
Residence Life frequently emphasizes the Jesuit value of cura personalis—care for the whole person. But meaningful care for the whole person must include the student staff members carrying much of the emotional and operational weight of residential life itself. A system rooted in cura personalis should not rely on students feeling emotionally depleted, under-supported and structurally overlooked in order to keep residence halls functioning. If Santa Clara University truly values the wellbeing of its residential communities, then it must recognize the unequal labor conditions within them.
For years, community facilitators in Swig and west side residence halls have spoken about these concerns. We have written reports. We have attended meetings. We have shared our experiences. The fact that Swig continues to function is not proof that the system is working. It reflects the dedication of the resident director and student staff holding it together. Yet too often, those conversations end with promises to revisit the issue later. The solutions are not impossible. Reevaluate workload distribution. Explore compensation models that reflect actual responsibilities. Expand access to mental health support. Create systems that better support student staff in high-incident communities. More than anything, however, community facilitators want to know that their experiences are being heard. Because no student worker should feel invisible within the very system they help keep running.
I’m a Swig CF, and it has been an honor and a privilege to serve this community for the past two years. Despite the challenges, we represent resilience, leadership and an unwavering commitment to our residents. We will continue showing up for this community. The question is whether the institution will show the same commitment to us.