WE ARE NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR 2024-2025 OR 2025-2026 COMMUNITY ASSISTANTS
PLEASE CHECK BACK IN SPRING 2025 FOR ANY UPDATES
HFS is committed to supporting and enhancing the lives of graduate students. The Community Assistant (CA) position is a live-in position within Residential Life that serves the graduate and professional student community at Mercer Court Apartments. Under the direct supervision of professional staff, the CA is responsible for referring residents to campus and community resources, facilitating opportunities for social and professional connections, and supporting a safe and inclusive community for residents to pursue their academic and professional goals.
Contact Us
For more information about the CA position, the selection process or application, please contact us at ResLifeSL@uw.edu.
What Does a Community Assistant Do?
The Graduate CA position is a student leader role that can be used to enhance your graduate experience and develop transferable skills to support your career goals. The Former CAs: Where Are They Now? resource provides insight to what past CAs have found most valuable from their experience and what advice they have for prospective or current Grad CAs. To learn more about what a CA does, you can click here to view a copy of the draft 2024-2025 CA Position Agreement.
Community Development
CAs serve an important role in connecting with the residents in our Graduate Housing. CAs focus on creating 1:1 relationship with their residents as well as creating opportunities for residents to connect with one another through various initiatives and programs.
Resident Safety & Wellbeing
Serving On-Call: CAs serve on call overnight and throughout the weekend to support safety in their community. CAs complete rounds and hold an on-call phone for residents to reach out if they have concerns after business hours.
Responding to Violations of the Housing Agreement: CAs learn about the housing agreement and the policies therein to educate residents on the policies. CAs also confront policy violations and provide educational conversations to residents and document behaviors that they notice within their community.
Navigating Roommate Conflict: CAs support the residents living in their community. CAs can help residents who are experiencing conflict with their roommates with mediations, and revising apartment agreements.
Addressing Facility Concerns: CAs are trained to identify facilities concerns within their community, and trained to support the triage of those concerns. CAs alert our facilities and custodial teams when conditions within the hall change.
Supporting Students in Crisis: CAs are trained with helping skills to support students experiencing crisis. Resident Advisers are one of multiple layers of support for students, and they report when students are experiencing crisis to their supervisors. CAs can be asked to follow up with residents and provide additional resources.
Administrative Responsibilities
CAs are responsible for completing a variety of administrative tasks that require a level of skill in time management, prioritization and multitasking. Administrative responsibilities include: completing on-call reports during each on-call shift, completing weekly reports for supervisors, documenting and logging conversations with residents, managing and responding to emails in a timely manner, and other tasks that support department logistics.
Compensation
CAs are given in-kind compensation in the form of room, laundry, and a dining plan in exchange for completing the roles and responsibilities stated in the agreement. This role is not considered an employed position by the University.
Frequently Asked Questions
We value a variety of applicants to serve our diverse population of residents. However, preference will be given to candidates enrolled in related fields or who have transferable experiences.
Most of the work and responsibilities of a CA occurs in the evening hours when residents are home. At a basic functional level, CAs must be available to attend a weekly 2-hour staff meeting and serve on an on-call rotation, which requires staff to be present in the community from 5pm-8am. For details about on-call, please see below.
Applicants do not need to have previous RA or student leadership experience, but candidates with these experiences will be given preference. We also value transferrable skills that can be applied to this role.
The CA position is listed as 19.5 hours per week; however, it is difficult to quantify the experience since it can vary based on resident and operational needs. A CA’s primary responsibilities are to provide individualized support to students, work with a student leader team to coordinate and host regular community events, and assist with routine building operations.
Each Grad CA serves on an on-call rotation of 4 Student Leaders. CAs must check in and be present in their community no later than 5pm and must remain in the community until they conclude their on-call shift at 8am the following day. The CA On-Call responds to needs from the community which can include, but are not limited to: facilities concerns, lockouts, policy violations and noise disturbances. The staff member on-call also conducts nightly rounds of the community to ensure the safety of residents.
During a typical quarter, there are around 55 weeknights, and 22 weekend nights which are split between a rotation of 4 CAs. On average, that comes out to about 20 total nights of on-call responsibilities per quarter.
While our Student Leader team directly serves the graduate and professional community, we operate within a larger apartments area and within the unit of Residential Life. As the only graduate and professional community on campus, we lean on our other team members who are undergraduate students and staff to work collaboratively when appropriate. Autumn Training is for all paraprofessional staff including RAs and CAs, so is largely an undergraduate larger group. Mercer Court Apartments has five total buildings with two buildings designated solely for graduate students. The Graduate CAs provide leadership and support of the two graduate housing buildings.
Mercer Court D and E house 285 graduate and professional students ranging all programs of study, ages, and backgrounds. We also have a high international student population.
Unfortunately, all housing on campus at the University of Washington is pet-free (with the exception of fish). Additionally, all Student Leader spaces are for the Student Leader and cannot accommodate partners/roommates.
Graduate CAs are compensated with room and board. CAs receive a single studio apartment that is partially furnished. Parking is available to all residents, including staff, at the rates set by Transportation Services, who manage the Mercer parking garage. The meal plan included is a Level 4 dining plan, and can be used in any dining hall, restaurant, coffee shop, or market on campus.
CAs receive additional compensation for volunteering to provide 24-hour on-call coverage during break periods.
The CA position is a 12-month commitment, beginning the week of Labor Day through the end of August.
Pending Student Leader transitions, opportunities may be available for an early start date. Please inquire if you have interest in beginning the position early.