Episode 1: Dan Colascione, Director of Residence Life

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Shonta Sellers: Hello and welcome to spur of the moment, a podcast for the curious., this is your host is Shonta Sellers, and welcome to conversations that pique your curiosity through genuine questions and reactions. Our guests are not given the questions first, just so we can get unique answers. So here we go.

Today is sure to be an entertaining and interesting conversation. We're talking with Dan Colascione, Director of Residence Life. How are you today?

Dan Colascione: I'm doing great. Good to be here.

SS: How long have you been here at USC?

DC: I got to USC in the summer of 2012, came here right out of grad school. Originally from Long Island, New York. I had no expectations of how long I'd be at USC, and here I am starting year 14.

SS: So let's talk a little bit about residence life, that's what brought you down here, right? How long have you been in Residence Life?

DC: So I have been in residence live since really as an undergraduate student. As a sophomore in college, I became an RA. I was involved with our residence association for three years. Went off to grad school and was a graduate hall director, and then came here to be a residence life coordinator. I started out in South Tower, overseeing one building, did that for three years, and then transitioned to an assistant director position that I did for six years.

And then I actually made a jump to housing facilities, and I did that for three summers, before transitioning back to residence life into the director position in 2023.

I was looking to make a jump to do something different. I had been in my role for six years, and, luckily, April Barnes, our executive director at the time, was open to finding ways to keep me at USC. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave housing, and there was an open position that worked out, and that was one of the more transformational opportunities that I have had, in my career is being able to take a step out of what I knew and learn something completely different.

SS: So you went from being in a super comfortable position to something very uncomfortable.

DC: Absolutely. I worked with our custodial staff members in housing. I worked with our call center, as well as our move crew, and the custodial staff were such a treat to work with. That was a population, I had never worked as a custodial staff member, and it was a completely different population than I was used to but one that I absolutely fell in love with, and really enjoyed working with and actually, wrote my dissertation on and my research was on racism in the workplace for black custodial staff members.

And it was a great opportunity for me to learn about a career and an experience that I had never had and could never have as a white male. It was something that really helped me, learn how to support my staff, get to know my people and be the best, you know, supervisor that I could be.

SS: So we would equate volunteering or working a residence life and all the crazy things that we see as a game of survivor. Are you familiar with Survivor?

DC: So I've actually applied to be on Survivor multiple times and just did about a month ago for like the fifth time. So really a Survivor superfan. I've seen every episode, and if I get my chance, I'm going.

SS: Okay, so you got to give us more detail. This is the good stuff.

DC: My fourth application. We just had our second child. Okay. I was extremely sleep deprived, and I sent a video in to CBS and said, 'Hey, I welcome this opportunity because I can't get less sleep than I'm getting now. So get me out to Fiji and let's go.'

SS: What about Survivor that you want to be on there so bad?

DC: I think it's the ultimate opportunity to compete. And as a person, I'm a competitor.

In Residence Life, I have to really play up on my includer strengths, and there's not a whole lot of opportunities where I am really competing in my work, in the way that I could do on Survivor.

SS: Residence life is one of the biggest student employers on campus, what does support and development for those students look like?

DC: Absolutely. So in my time at USC, the RAs (resident assistants) — there's 322 RAs — abd as an up and coming newer professional, I saw that our RAs kind of felt disconnected, and they used to refer to Housing and Housing leadership as something separate from what they were a part of. And I knew when I came into this position that I wanted to change that, because when you have 322 students, if you can get them moving in the same direction, you can do anything.

We have worked in multiple ways. So on the RA side, we work really hard to get to know them, to support them. We have done things like creating opportunities for them to feel strengthened as an RA community. I have an advisory board. So each building sends one RA once a month, and we talk about whatever it is that they want to talk about. It gives them an opportunity to talk to leadership, talk to Housing about the things that, you know, they're struggling with.

SS: I know as we move into the fall opening, a lot of people think, well, let the RAs help all the students move in, but our RAs are busy trying to get to know the students and help the students when they're on the floor. So you need volunteers to come and help out?

DC: Absolutely. Yes. Move-in Is a university event. I think it's easy for, like you said, for folks to kind of think, okay, you know, Housing has got moving covered. We do have it covered, but there's some extra hands that we could really use welcoming our families, unloading cars.

We're a one day move in this year, so the quicker we get students things out of their cars and get their cars out of the way, we make room for, you know, the next set of folks that come in. So I highly would suggest volunteering for move-in ... and all things Carolina Welcome.

SS: What is the close statement you'd like to make to everybody listening today?

DC: Yeah, I think, University Housing and Residence Life is one that folks shy away from, but want to invite you in.

if you are in office, or feel like you can partner better, or have something to offer in the residence halls, we welcome that. We have a captive audience abd welcome any opportunities to, like I said, build community, connect students to resources around campus.

Because we're not trying to duplicate efforts. We're trying to build relationships, build community and and how we can support, you know, the greater initiatives that are happening at USC.