Econ 490 Fall Alan Krueger

In late October 2016, I was hired on by University Housing to become a Residential Advisor (RA), to replace someone who had been removed from the position around a month prior. To briefly explain the organizational structure of Housing staff, an individual RA works with a staff of around ten other RAs, in my case eleven, a ‘Multicultural Advocate’ (MA), under a direct supervisor, the Resident Director (RD), who reports to further levels of upper management. The staff of each hall arrive up to three weeks before the academic year officially starts to undergo training and in the process do a lot of team building exercises. As a result of being the only people on campus at the time, most staffs grow relatively close with one another and, as is stated in Boleman and Deal chapter eight, work out an organizational hierarchy that is right for them. People who are content to lead, lead, those who wish to fade into the background, fade. As a mid-semester hire (which is very rare, most re...

This week’s prompt asks us to delve into three readings in order to apply them to a team setting with gift exchange. While I typically like to structure my posts before I write them, this prompt has me wanting to do the opposite; so fair warning, this one may come out as a more stream-of-consciousness than normal. The team that I’ve been a part of that’s most fresh in my head is the cast and crew of the most recent theatrical production I was a part of. I served as the director of the show, and I’m somewhat trepidatious to use it as an example as a fellow classmate was a member of the production, but the recency should allow for specificity, which I will try to use to my advantage. The first of these articles I read was the one on using game theory with children. Now, at the risk of offense, I compare this to my own recent experience, with the caveat of course that adults are not children. However, as I’m beginning to realize, some do like to act like them. For those unfamiliar...