Spring Break
Experienced resident adviser knows how to take a joke
Mark Price | Knight Ridder Newspapers
Issue date: 9/14/05 Section: News
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Daniel Beason is only 21 years old, but he has lived the past four years in a freshman dorm at University of North Carolina at Charlotte and that is enough to scar a guy for life.
He was standing on a box in Moore Hall, swinging his arms as he delivered a seemingly absurd list of rules to some of the 100 men who will share the fifth floor with him this year.
Beason is a RA in this madhouse, an upper classman who is part friend, part counselor and part cop.
"No dangling from the balconies, even if you have three people holding your arms," he said, without cracking a smile.
"No playing sports in the hallways, even if you invented the sport.
"No throwing couches out the windows. No walking on the ledges. No pulling fire alarms for fun, or paying someone to pull the alarms for fun.
"If you are naked and running through the hall screaming, I am going to assume you're drunk and write it up, even if that's just something you like to do for fun," he said.
The freshmen laugh nervously but take Beason seriously, even after he has a late arrival, Nick from room 503, stands on a table and dances like a pirate for the group.
Yes, crazy things happen in Moore Hall, but the craziest thing of all is that Beason loves it here, even on days when the jokes are on him.
"Every man has to make his mark," he said. "This is mine."
Last year, Beason was named Moore Hall's Resident Adviser of the Year.
A student in a gorilla suit showed up on the day freshmen checked into dorms this school year.
"We don't know who it was," said Michael Denton, assistant director for new student and leadership programs. "It was just a student who needed to run around in a gorilla suit apparently."
Whatever the reason, it suggests a busy year ahead for the university's 93 RAs. There are 4,500 students living on campus and half are freshmen spending their first year away from home.
Moore Hall is all freshmen, 500 men and women, so large-scale foolishness is inevitable, much of it innocent, but some of it dangerous.
He was standing on a box in Moore Hall, swinging his arms as he delivered a seemingly absurd list of rules to some of the 100 men who will share the fifth floor with him this year.
Beason is a RA in this madhouse, an upper classman who is part friend, part counselor and part cop.
"No dangling from the balconies, even if you have three people holding your arms," he said, without cracking a smile.
"No playing sports in the hallways, even if you invented the sport.
"No throwing couches out the windows. No walking on the ledges. No pulling fire alarms for fun, or paying someone to pull the alarms for fun.
"If you are naked and running through the hall screaming, I am going to assume you're drunk and write it up, even if that's just something you like to do for fun," he said.
The freshmen laugh nervously but take Beason seriously, even after he has a late arrival, Nick from room 503, stands on a table and dances like a pirate for the group.
Yes, crazy things happen in Moore Hall, but the craziest thing of all is that Beason loves it here, even on days when the jokes are on him.
"Every man has to make his mark," he said. "This is mine."
Last year, Beason was named Moore Hall's Resident Adviser of the Year.
A student in a gorilla suit showed up on the day freshmen checked into dorms this school year.
"We don't know who it was," said Michael Denton, assistant director for new student and leadership programs. "It was just a student who needed to run around in a gorilla suit apparently."
Whatever the reason, it suggests a busy year ahead for the university's 93 RAs. There are 4,500 students living on campus and half are freshmen spending their first year away from home.
Moore Hall is all freshmen, 500 men and women, so large-scale foolishness is inevitable, much of it innocent, but some of it dangerous.
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