The undergraduate and Graduate Resident Advisors of Penn are committed to fostering community throughout our respective college houses. In addition to fulfilling the duties and requirements of a full-time college student, Residential Advisors go above and beyond to ensure that their campus community feels inclusive, welcoming, and respectful. It is with our consistent work in programming, 24/7 accessibility, and open communication we are able to breathe life into an otherwise stressful and draining environment.

Despite our contributions, (G)RAs at Penn experience a wide variety of unfair conditions in the recent semester. After unanimously ratifying our first union contract in June 2024, the College Houses and Academic Services (CHAS) has unleashed a series of harmful, discriminatory, and clearly anti-union attacks on our members. These practices include unfair and hasty disciplinary progression, leading to the opening of nearly 50 disciplinary cases against (G)RAs since August 2024. The reasons for discipline have grown increasingly inane, with one person facing probation for missing meetings as a result of a communicated family emergency. Other (G)RAs have faced harsher penalties, either being terminated or placed on probation for mundane actions that would have resulted in a far less significant punishment in previous years.

We are one of eight unionized RA unions within OPEIU Local 153. Penn has disciplined more (G)RAs than all other universities’ RA unions combined, including all disciplines at Fordham, Tufts, Barnard, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Emerson, Swarthmore and Wesleyan (over 700+ RAs). CHAS’s vindictive misuse of the discipline process not only violates our contract, it threatens many (G)RAs’ access to room and board.

The unjust disciplinary treatment of (G)RAs does not exist in a vacuum. Penn has continued to diminish and target (G)RAs with a slew of oppressive actions. This began with the denial of the Residential Advisor position as an actual job deserving of pay. At the beginning of this semester, Penn started spreading false information concerning our ability to have a job in addition to the (G)RA position. Then Penn started the purposeful robbing of financial aid from RAs. Now we have these awful disciplinary practices. Enough is enough!

Through these trying times, our union staff and stewards have worked to fight off these attempts at belittling and discrimination filing dozens of grievances, arbitrations and even lawsuits; however, we need your support. We, the (G)RAs, students, and community members of the University of Pennsylvania, oppose these wrongful and disgusting actions intended to strike fear into the hearts of campus leaders and cultivators of joyful community. We sign below to show our collective frustration with CHAS's actions and urge proper follow-through of the disciplinary process as outlined in the RA contract ratified in June 2024.