The Resident Advisors Union (WPI-RAU-UAW) at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has issued management a strike deadline of 12PM this Friday, 10/31/25. This step comes after months of bargaining in which university administrators have refused to negotiate over proposed changes which would dismantle the RA role.

The University’s plan would split the RA position into three roles, a Community Support Assistant, a Residential Mentor, and a Community Development Mentor. This restructuring would severely degrade support and under management’s current proposal would strip the housing benefit from half of current RA’s.

This change will...

decrease the quality of the support RAs are able to provide to their residents.

Our effectiveness is contingent on the relationships we have with our residents. The proposed changes will compartmentalize the position, weakening our ability to build community. Under the proposal, a single RA would be responsible for many more residents leading to shallower, more transactional interactions. This will make it difficult for RAs to earn residents’ trust through Gompei Chats and regular exchanges. Assuming a clean split of duties, the RAs who will be in the new proposed "Residential Mentor” position would need to do 120 Gompei chats per term. Residents are already reluctant to call the duty phone, and this change will only make that dynamic worse.

remove the housing benefit from over 40 RAs

Housing in Worcester is difficult to find and expensive. The housing benefit makes WPI accessible for students who are less economically advantaged. It connects us with our residents, whose sense of community would be dampened without our presence. We learn a lot about our residents by living with them – we would lose an important source of connection and information gathering.

...and does not account for the concerns and feedback of RAs.

The concerns about this restructuring were raised last year at an all-staff meeting and management has not meaningfully addressed any of them. WPI has said that the purpose of this change is not to save them money. If that is the case, then we question the motivation behind the proposal. We think it's clear that these changes will make us less effective, will harm resident communities, and will make our jobs more difficult.