Resident assistant shares the fun little activities that help her be a support system to students on campus
Rachel Smith
Antelope Staff

Shapcott, a resident assistant of the second floor in Centennial Towers West says she wanted to be an RA since her freshman year. “Last year I had really awesome RAs so that helped a lot, and I still wanted to live on campus,” she said.
She says she wanted to continue to be a leader after graduating high school because she was the vice president all four years and was in several leadership clubs.

She decided on UNK because of the medium size and the leadership opportunities. She is in the NRHH (National Residence Hall Honorary) and is also a member of the Red Cross Club, and the Health Science club on campus.

Everyone who has ever lived in the dorms at UNK has probably noticed that every month, a new nametag with a different theme shows up on each resident’s door. Shapcott said her and her co-RA, Dillon Beles, come up with the different themes each month for the nametags on the doors. “We try to stick with the holiday themes. Sometimes it just gets off track depending on what we want to do,” Shapcott said. Beles is a junior secondary education major with endorsements in physical education and history from La-Vista.

Beles and Shapcott also decorate a board in the hallway of the floor right outside the elevators with different topics or events that are happening.
“Right now we’re in the process of making a new one, so we kind of want to do something with summer,” Shapcott said. “Something with either actual summer vacation, or waiting for summer. Then, we come up with an idea of what we want [for the theme] after we have the information.”

“Even if I don’t know or if I’m not best friends with all the RAs in my building, I still have really good friendships with other RAs of other buildings.”
Shapcott enjoys the little things in the job that make it fun to be a leader.