Building Residential Community
Jonathyn Jannot, Jeremy Torres ‘18, Rose Troyer, and Doug Lisko
One of the benefits of being a fully residential community is the ability to capture the learning opportunities that happen naturally in living and community spaces. Denison students live with people from different backgrounds, cultures and languages — creating a strong global literacy foundation as they form a wide array of friendships.
Community coordinators live in residential buildings and help build strong, vibrant communities, as well as aid in developing relationships among the residents. They lead student community advisors and support community development on the East and West Quads.
Four new community coordinators (CCs) are joining the residential communities (Res Comm) team: Rose Troyer, Jeremy Torres ‘18, Doug Lisko, and Jonathyn Jannot.
Léna Crain, director of Residential Communities, says, “Community coordinators will be deeply trained in Denison’s community development model and some of the unique tools we employ to develop relationships, tell our stories, and resolve conflict through differences. In short, their role is the mission of Res Comm, embodied.”
Among their responsibilities, CCs will supervise and mentor the community advisor (CA) staff, participate in an on-call rotation and crisis response, and support programing of CAs and other departments.
In addition to their primary role within Residential Communities, each CC also liaises with another Denison department, including CLIC student organizations and The Open House (Jannot); service-learning (Troyer); gender and sexuality (Torres); and community values and conflict resolution (Lisko).
“This deepens their expertise and helps them to work collaboratively to bring the work of departments directly into community programming and relationship building,” says Crain.
Though recent college graduates themselves, each of the CCs brings higher education experience to the position. Jannot comes to The Hill having worked in residence life and admission. Lisko brings experience in student activities, residence life, orientation, student conduct and academic support. Troyer worked in international student services and also community engagement. Torres served as a community advisor at Denison.
Crain says, “The CCs are not long-removed from their own collegiate experiences, which give them a special ability to connect with Denisonians and actively understand and support the needs of students sharing community here. They have a range of unique experiences and personalities. I hope that students will take the time to get to know the CCs and invite them to participate in the richness of Denison life.”
The coordinators are getting to know students and the Denison community as they create intentional and impactful programming with Res Comm and other departments, and mentor and supervise the CAs.
Lisko says, “I am most looking forward to being back on a college campus and being able to work with students that are going through the excitement and stress of college.”
