UWRF introduces a new assistant director of Residence Life for leadership development and outreach

UW-River Falls welcomes a new Assistant Director of Residence Life for Leadership Development and Outreach: Liz Brunner. Brunner recently started in this position on Oct. 28, she has previously worked on campus as a hall director.

Brunner took this position because she felt that it would suit her interests in engaging with students. “I knew each day wouldn’t be the same, and I thought this work was super fascinating, multifaceted, and made me excited to get up and get engaged,” she said.

Brunner has had several positions that have given her experience in residence life. Apart from holding a career in the field for the past three years at UWRF, she also worked in residence life during her college experience. Brunner received her undergraduate degree at UW-Platteville while she worked as a Residence Assistant (RA) for three years. “Before I got to college, I didn’t even know that positions like this existed,” she said.

Brunner attended grad school at the University of Central Missouri and held a position as a hall director during her experience there. “I really love working with college students and I knew that higher education was something that I wanted to go into,” she said.

The position Brunner currently holds has various responsibilities, such as supervising a graduate student intern, overseeing the Hathorn mail center, departmental marketing and communications, project management, and advising the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) and Residence Hall Association (RHA).

The departmental marketing and communications is one of the larger aspects of the position. This includes email plans, “room sign up is around the corner, so I am working with another assistant director to talk about: how are we going to let our students know about this, how are we going to update our website, what’s our email plan look like,” Brunner said.

This position also includes collaborative work across all departments on campus. “I partner with a lot of people on campus, like admissions and the new student and family programs. So I help out with Falcon preview days that happen during the year, and new student registration over the summer,” Brunner said.

Brunner is excited to bring her passion for higher education and residence life to this new position, and she looks forward to continuing to interact with students on campus. “Students are super respectful here at UWRF, and that is something I was so taken by when I first started working here. I hadn’t had that experience before, and I felt that this was an amazing community,” she said.