Human Aggregate Environment

There are a number of people who contribute to the human aggregate environment in McNutt and in Residence Life. As Strange and Banning (2015) state, "environments are transmitted through people, and the dominant features of any given environment are partially a function of the collective characteristics of the individuals who inhabit it" (p. 51). In McNutt, there is one Residence Manager (RM), two Residence Life Coordinators of Student Development (RLC-SDs), one Residence Life Coordinator of Operations (RLC-O), one EO Supervisor, three GSs (shoutout to my HESA co-grads, Will and Evan!), 26 RAs, 2 CommUNITY Educators (CUEs), and multiple maintenance workers, EO staff members, Jellison Living Learning Community (JLLC) staff members, and student center desk assistants. Finally, there are approximately 1,350 residents who live in the building. All of these humans influence McNutt's environment.

The aggregate environment is shaped by a number of different factors, including personality types, learning styles, the talents and strengths of those who are involved in the community, and engagement types (Strange & Banning, 2015). In an environment which contains so many individuals, it is difficult to identify overarching characteristics that feel accurate. However, it is easier to do so when thinking about McNutt's Leadership Team (LT), which is composed of McNutt's two RLC-SDs, RLC-O, EO Supervisor, and three GSs. It also also easier to do so for our student staff members, particularly the RAs. I feel that learning more about the personality types, learning styles, talents and strengths, and engagement types of our LT member and student staff members is critical to navigating our environment. This is because LT communicates directly with each other to determine both our goals for the building and the expectations that we have for our RAs, who play an important part in shaping the environment of their assigned residential communities. Thinking more specifically about RAs, these categories are intimately connected to who they are as people, and influence how they interact with me, their residents, and all other aspects of their position. Their work significantly impacts the community as a whole.

Though I won't go into specific details about the characteristics of my co-workers and staff members, I do think it's interesting to think about the "degree of differentiation" or "the degree of type homogeneity among inhabitants" of McNutt and of Residence Life in general (Strange & Banning, 2015, p. 71).

“A highly differentiated, or focused, environment is dominated by a single type (e.g., a socializer), while an undifferentiated environment is more diffuse, being characterized by a variety of different types (e.g., an even distribution of social activists, leaders, artists, hedonists, and status strivers). [...] Differentiated or highly focused environments actively reinforce or accentuate their own characteristics over time, by exerting a press toward conformity, while undifferentiated environments “stimulate a broad range of behavior and provide ambiguous guidance” (Strange & Banning, 2015, p. 71).

As a whole, I would categorize the Residence Life department at IU as differentiated, not only because the department works to carry out common goals, but also because the structure of the environment itself seems to encourage conformity. However, I would argue that many of the residential center staffs, including McNutt's staff, seem to be more undifferentiated in nature. This is because the staffs are composed of students of all different backgrounds, who have many different perspectives and goals. Sometimes the conflict between Residence Life's differentiated nature and McNutt's undifferentiated nature becomes noticeable. I'd be curious to know if this is a common conflict among organizational departments both at IU and at other institutions.