By Laura Palmer
November 4, 2026

I am what you might call a “non-traditional” housing professional.

I came to Residence Life by way of campus ministry, where I had served for more than 20 years, with some youth ministry along the way. I always knew my calling was to work with college students. I just never imagined that calling would eventually lead me to campus housing.

During my years in youth and campus ministry, I did a little bit of everything: student support and outreach, concerts, trips and retreats, mission trip planning, volunteer training, and plenty of programming. Looking back, I can see how much of that experience prepared me for Residence Life, even though I did not know it at the time.

There was another reason campus housing felt unfamiliar to me. I grew up in Peru, where campus housing is far less common than it is in the United States. I walked to school or took the bus. I am from a city of about one million people, where taking taxis and buses, walking, and living with your parents until you get married were simply part of everyday life.

In many ways, I was a foreigner twice over: a foreigner to this country and a foreigner to the profession.

But I was never a foreigner to the population we serve.

I understood college students. I understood the importance of community, support, relationships, and having people who believe in you. And perhaps because I have so often experienced life from the perspective of an outsider, I also understood something else: the desire to belong.

My path here was anything but traditional.

I once wanted to be a doctor but ultimately earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer and Systems Engineering. While I was in college, I became involved in campus ministry and continued that work for more than 20 years. That work eventually brought my family to Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, Arkansas.

Years later, while working full time as an administrative assistant on the academic side of the university, I began working on my master’s degree. I had three children under the age of 15 at the time, so life was already full.

During the final year of my program, I realized I could graduate in December if I took nine hours that summer. At about the same time, I began looking for new professional opportunities.

And there it was. Residence Life Coordinator of Marketing and Assignments. Should I apply?

I started making the case to myself. My Computer and Systems Engineering background could help me learn StarRez and other housing technology. I loved working with college students. I had organized mission trips, trained volunteer teams, coordinated programs, and spent years supporting students.

A former supervisor used to tell us, “You miss 100% of the chances you do not take.” So, I took the chance. I applied. And I got the job.

I quickly discovered that Housing Services in Residence Life was an entirely different creature from anything I had experienced while working with college students.

First came assignments and billing for summer camps and conferences. Then transitioning StarRez from desktop to the cloud and learning the system along the way. Then making sure StarRez communicated correctly with Banner. Then room damage charges. Then creating a housing ambassador team. Then developing a marketing plan and building a marketing team.

One challenge led to another, and then another.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that if I held back my energy or curiosity because I was not sure if I belonged, I would never learn everything there was to learn. So, I jumped in with both feet.

I learned from concerned students and parents. I learned from colleagues and administrators. I learned from systems that worked and systems that did not. I was challenged in ways I never could have imagined, and I still am.

Sometimes I joke that I have lived a thousand lives since I started working in Residence Life, making up for never being an RA or RD or following the more traditional path into this field.

But here is the beautiful part: I never felt like an outsider.

I want to give credit and thanks where they are due. My supervisors at the time, Dr. Delton Gordon and Dr. Bill Lacava, welcomed me with open arms and taught me the ways of Residence Life. Through them, I learned something about this profession that has stayed with me: Residence Life professionals are, at their best, people who create community.

We welcome. We care. We help students find their place.

Dr. Gordon once spoke about the concept of a “third place,” a space outside of home and work where people find community and belonging. That idea has stayed with me.

Maybe that is part of what Residence Life became for me.

I came into this profession thinking about all the ways I did not fit the traditional mold. I had never been an RA. I had never been an RD. I did not grow up with residence halls. I had an engineering degree, decades of ministry experience, three kids, and an outsider’s perspective.

And somehow, all of those things belonged here too.

That is what I hope we offer our students, our staff, and even the professionals who find their way into this field through unconventional paths:

You belong here.

There may not be one “right” path into Residence Life. Sometimes the outsider’s perspective is exactly what helps us see differently, ask different questions, build new things, and recognize the person standing on the outside wondering whether there is room for them.

There is.

Come in.

Laura Palmer
Associate Dean of Residence Life at Arkansas Tech University