An on-campus job would seem like a godsend for most students: work and class separated only by a walk across the Faryon Bridge—and the added bonus of guaranteed housing for those who apply as Residence Life Dons—every base of adulthood is covered. 

Trent describes the role of a don as “a student employee within Student Housing who fosters a sense of community within residence that is conducive to learning, engagement, academic success, and personal growth and development” in the position’s most recent job description. It seems no wonder, then, that students from such varying backgrounds flock to the position.

However, a months-long investigation by Arthur has revealed that the Residence Life Don position at Trent is far from being a university student's dream come true. From an unpredictable discount on residency, meagre compensation, to the very integrity of the job—being a Don is not as lavish as it is made out to be. Dons across Trent’s collegiate residences have come forward accusing Trent of fomenting a culture of overwork in which dons are underprepared and undercompensated for the emotionally and mentally demanding job they are asked to do. 

Arthur spoke to a number of both current and former Residence Life Dons for this story, all of whom requested their identity be protected for fear of reprisal from the university in their place of work and residence. 

Students often hear about the position through experience or word of mouth. First-year residency is an unforgettable experience for most students, with the dons from every corner of Trent Univeristy working hard to maintain a safe learning environment, a home-away-from-home, and a supportive community. Many dons who spoke with Arthur came into the position wanting to make genuine changes to the present campus culture they had experienced first hand while living in residence themselves.

“I had a hard time my first year, because I was assaulted on campus. My goal was to make sure that at the very least, I could support students in the same way that my Don supported me because they were fantastic. And I wanted to have that kind of mentor relationship for students who needed somebody in their corner to advocate for them, to support them,” one don told Arthur, when asked about their expectations coming into the job. 

The promised 20% discount on residency—which is a principal incentive for many applicants—is not even a guarantee. In reality, this discount can be subject to annual reassessment by the university based on the budget for a given year, as stated in the small print on the job postings.

“To have a protected discount is the bare minimum,” an anonymous on-campus Residence Life Don related to Arthur. 

The unpredictable discount is not the only part of the job compensation that is causing uproar among Residence Life Dons, however. Dons hired for the 2024/2025 academic school year will have a contract period of 36 weeks and 2 days, starting on August 19th 2024, and ending on April 30th 2025, with an expectation to work approximately 10–15 hours per week.

“We’re technically considered part-time workers. Even if you look at the amount of on-duty hours we work, we shouldn’t even be considered part-time workers, even if you’re only looking at our shifts,” a Traill College Don told Arthur in regards to the expected amount of on-duty hours.

If the average Don is expected to work a maximum of 15 hours a week for 36 weeks on a $2000 salary, that amounts to Trent paying their student-staff $3.70 per hour. On a $5000 salary, the hourly pay rises to $9.26, still far below the present minimum wage of $16.55 across Ontario. 

Moreover, dons across campus have revealed to Arthur they are often working far in excess of this 15 hour expectation each week with no additional compensation. Working as few as two on-call shifts—which is the expectation and the norm according to the Dons who came forward—puts them easily over 24 hours worked in an average week. 

“That’s not including the staff meetings we attend, the meetings we set with our students, any of the events we run, the support we are providing emotionally, academically, personally, community-wise to our students,” one Don said. 

In a request for comment from Arthur, Trent University recognized that “Due to the nature of the residence environment, a Don’s hours of work may vary from week to week.” 

This is further reflected within the most recently posted job descriptions, with “Other duties as assigned” having been added as the very last line within the “responsibilities” section. 

In addition to their duties in supervising students, Dons are responsible for promoting campus programs and events. Dons must plan their community meetings and events in hopes of creating the sense of community that is integral to a positive university experience. Dons are strongly encouraged to create unique relationships with the students they look after, ensuring that each student knows that someone trustworthy is right down the hall.

Despite this, some Dons have confided that living so closely alongside students within the residence buildings makes the job feel never-ending. 

“There’s not a lot of boundaries with the work-life thing. So it does feel like it is a largely unclocked job,” one off-campus Don said. 

These boundaries of school, work, and personal life continue to become blurred with the loss of Don administrative space, which has added to heightening feelings among some Dons that their bedrooms are becoming office spaces. “In the situation if there is a student who wants to disclose a sexual assault, where am I expected to meet with them? In my room? In a common space? In their room?” one don implored.

Lady Eaton College has recently removed its Don apartments in order to create more seminar and office space, creating more challenges around ensuring Don safety as well finding the balance between being an authoritative figure and a friendly mentor to the students living in residence. 

“There is no appropriate space [for meetings] because housing continues to take away Don spaces like the Don apartments,” a don told Arthur.

With Residence Life Dons being responsible for far more than simply keeping a watchful eye over students residing in their assigned section and being an accessible guide to all things Trent University, dons cite a large need for spaces that are private, professional, and separate from personal lives.

The role of a don requires “24 hour” or “on-call” availability, but the problem for many of the dons who spoke to Arthur lies with the fact that there is nothing that compensates for this kind of labour coming from a student. This is in spite of the demand of constant availability and the spontaneous nature of the job which has dons responding to calls at all hours of the day and night, and seems to disregard the fact that dons are subject to the same academic responsibilities and expectations as all students.

The continuous proximity to students over whom they have professional authority has further proven to negatively impact the wellbeing of dons across campus. 

Multiple sources have relayed feelings of helplessness while employed as a don, with many claiming to feel aas though they have been thrown into a position that they are simply unqualified for. One should expect that the training for such a position would be intensive and that the employer would adequately explain all aspects of the job, but most dons report this is simply not the case. 

Although Trent describes their dons as “highly trained” individuals in various realms of social life, Trent dons are only required to have a standard first aid certificate, a CPR level C certificate, and participate in nine unpaid days of mandatory training that focuses on mental health awareness and crisis identification.

As one don recalled: “Imagine you are a first-year don, the only training you have gotten to deescalate situations, to support students in crisis is safeTALK, which is Suicide Awareness For Everyone, and you’ve been trained on the process in which complaints and situations get escalated and/or deescalated.” 

“Dons are expected to be the first line of support to that individual [who has been identified to be in a mental health crisis] even though we have no training on deescalating suicidal situations. We only have training on how to identify that somebody is potentially suicidal,” they continued. 

The overarching feeling among those who spoke to Arthur is that the training provided is simply inadequate for the demands of the job. Not only do the Dons struggle with the lack of training, but they find problems with the nature of the training itself, recalling the program to victim-blame and paint mentally ill individuals in a stereotypical light.

“They give you these very general talking points like ‘Oh, don’t kill yourself’ and things like that…It’s very surface level,” one don joked when asked about their opinion regarding safeTALK. 

A former Trent University don who contacted Arthur explained how the inadequate training, when compounded with the lacklustre mental health support on campus, left students and Dons alike in very dangerous positions. Dons become the main avenue for student supports, leaving them to work one-on-one with students in crisis to develop a suicidal ideation plan, or to clean “blood off their floors from self-inflicted injuries” because there is no one else to do so. 

“A lot of the dons are 18, 19—second-year students—they are not trained psychologists,” a Catherine Parr Traill College don told Arthur, commenting on the overall lack of knowledge they all have when it is clear that they are expected to be first-responders of sorts. 

Their training, they told Arthur, simply does not reflect these expectations. Though safeTALK essentially teaches them to recognize crises and call for help from Residence Life Coordinators (RLC’s), campus security, or the Peterborough Police, dons feel left to wonder “what are we supposed to do in this immediate situation?”

“Serious calls like that weren’t one-offs either, they were relatively frequent. I was too fucking young to hold so much pain,” one former don recalled, recounting how one year of donning has left them with post-traumatic stress. 

Stories from multiple current and former dons show that the spontaneous and oftentimes serious nature of the job combined with the continuous proximity to students and the lack of necessary training place dons at immediate risk while on the job and while studying, well…living.

Significantly, there is no mandatory self-defense training for dons, despite many dons having reported encounters with students who posed a physical risk to theirs and others’ safety.

One don who spoke to Arthur recounted a student they had in their section last year, who “at least twice a week would attempt to enter my residence when I was asleep.” 

A don from the downtown Traill College made a striking comment about their personal safety as well, explaining that “There’s no security that stays here. It’s just me and the other Dons.” 

While this Don admitted to having never experienced a situation in which they felt physically unsafe as in the incident mentioned before, they are still wary of the day something should happen, as the security team takes on average 20-40 minutes to arrive at the downtown college.

When asked specifically about this concern, dons of Trent University’s annex residences  echoed the sentiments of their Traill colleagues, saying that there is no full-time no security on residence premises, and that security takes a long time to arrive when needed. 

Even despite knowing the annexes’ notorious reputation for partying before beginning the job, they say the reality of it is incomparable. One annex don admitted to having known of a don who experienced students using verbal and physical intimidation tactics on them when responding to complaints. They added that they feared for the safety and wellbeing of their students.

The quality of living in the annexes has become rather bleak, with Dons claiming that emergency vehicles are called to the buildings up to three times per week, with that number rising if there is a party taking place or on holiday weekends. 

It’s not just parties that are landing people in the emergency room, however. Many dons alluded to high levels of substance use being endemic among their students. “There is a clear problem the university is not addressing,” a don commented when asked about substance abuse and the possibility of a mental health crisis occurring specifically in the annexes. 

Some dons chalk it up to being simply a consequence of the kind of students that tend to live in the annexes, as the party reputation attracts students who don’t necessarily place the classroom as their first priority. Other dons say it may be partly that the seclusion from Symons campus makes it harder to build and foster the sense of community and belonging that is so important to a positive university experience. 

Both student-staff and students have reported going to Housing Services in the past with concerns about their safety, concerns for which little to no support was given. In many reported cases, Arthur has learned that Housing Services would ask staff and students to call campus security, despite complaints from the dons that campus security is a service that is becoming stretched thin as well, with long wait times in between arrivals. 

When Housing Services have been called on by dons to answer to these various complaints, dons who have spoken to Arthur say that almost as if they shrug their shoulders and suggest that “it’s a part of your job,” pointing to the part of the job description that reads: “Other duties as assigned” at the very bottom of a don’s responsibilities. Most of the Dons who spoke to Arthur note that facing suicidal adolescents as a makeshift first responder with virtually no one else to turn to for help is not explicitly within the job description, nor do they consider it appropriately covered by the “Other duties,” to which it alludes. 

“With donning, it’s definitely an experience that is not for the weak of heart,” an ex-don noted. Dons are employed to be an authority figure and emergency contact, but many feel there is simply no way for them to perform these roles without the relevant training, adequate staffing or additional resources, as well as a pay or salary that reflects how much effort, time, and heart goes into this position. 

When reached for comment, Trent claimed that “Additional in-service training based on trends and student needs is also provided monthly throughout the year to all dons.”

It is true that there have been training sessions since August. One don reported that the major one, which took place January 4th, was “almost entirely refresher stuff; it covered some of the most basic points of the job that we covered extensively during August training.” 

In the case of the annexes, when communicating concerns about continuous parties getting out of hand and the unnerving amount of emergency vehicles needing to come to the residence weekly, the dons reported generally that Housing Services felt as if it was out of their hands. 

One Don said “I think in the past, there have been students who have brought up concerns to housing about the things we’ve been talking about, and they have definitely been dismissed. My experience is that when I've connected with my RLC in the past to voice my concerns, and I am met with a you’re right, this totally is what happens. And I'm so sorry that you feel like this, because they also don’t have any power to change anything either. It goes higher up then them in decision making. Like, I know Housing this week is doing, like, a listening session, where it's like they come in, and they’re just listening to concerns that student staff have about their role in Housing… all it’s doing is suggestions, it’s not holding them accountable to change anything systemically about what we identify as problems.” 

Regardless of the dons’ job being potentially dangerous in nature, there’s a point where an increase in all these situations and behaviours becomes concerning—concerning enough for some to suggest there's a genuine crisis which requires intervention on the part of the University. 

Residence Life Dons in the past have pushed for the creation of a union, which coincided with student-staff being let go from their positions, despite their not doing anything illegal or outside the terms of their contracts.

Over the past academic year, talk of a student-led union was floated around the residence hallways from don-to-don. All the while, senior Residence Life Dons allege that new hires are being passively persuaded against unionizing by someone higher-up. 

When asked if they thought this position was exploitative, one don told Arthur that  “There’s not a word that describes it better.” Many others to whom Arthur spoke agreed. 

The students who enter this position see it as a chance to save money and have a roof over their head during their time here at Trent. With money becoming a struggle for everyone amid an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and many parents pressuring their children to get a job close to school, the sales pitch of a don position appeals to many people. In reality, as many dons say, the position is simply too good to be true. There is little ability to save money and almost no opportunity for promotion  within the role to earn better compensation. 

Many of these students spend their whole University career in the Don position because they have yet to earn enough money to find a place off campus. Once graduated after working for three years straight, many have no savings to show for it. 

Residence Life Dons at other universities across the province, namely Western and Queens, have pushed to unionize as problems within student housing employment continue to worsen. As Housing staff neglect the concerns raised by various dons throughout the years, student workers have taken matters into their own hands, pushing to join a union even though their own employers did not consider them to be ‘real’ staff members. 

A similar problem seems to be occurring here at Trent University. In spite of the expectations placed upon them by Housing Services and Trent administration, Residence Life Dons still feel the university fails to recognize how much effort, time, and heart each don puts into their position. As the 2023/2024 academic year comes to a close, this is only exemplified by the treatment of what would have been returning dons for the 2024/2025 academic year. 

Following a budget increase for the coming academic year, “approximately 25% [of dons] at Durham were rehired and about 20% rehired at Peterborough campus. So approximately 70-75% per campus [were fired for the 2024/2025 academic year],” according to a Residence Life Coordinator at Trent University’s Durham campus. 

Dons returning to the position in the following school year would be considered senior dons and therefore entitled to a raise in salary. Letting them go results in more dons with less experience being paid less for the same hefty workload, with which they have less experience.. 

Efforts to unionize Trent University dons allegedly remain underway despite the mass amount of dons from this year who will not return for the upcoming academic year. 

Efforts to unionize Residence Life Dons at Trent were dealt a significant blow earlier this year, when Trent Central Student Association President, Aimee Anctil, announced at a January 21st meeting of the Association’s Board of Directors that an initiative to unionize student housing workers had failed.

Anctil attributed this failure in part to collective apathy coming out of exam season, as well as an “HR situation” to which she alluded, but did not elaborate on.

While unionization is not the only thing needed to mend the plight of student housing workers at Trent, many Residence Life Dons feel it would be a big step in the right direction and a whole lot more than what is already being done. 

When the new dons enter the field with such little training and trained resources around them, there will be consequences. The Trent University Dons are responsible for so much of campus culture and safety that they don’t get enough thanks for. 

“People like Jen Coulter, open your eyes, please, because this is unsustainable, exploitative and actively harmful to your student population that is working to support you and your students. Stop stretching us thin,” one don pleaded. Whether this call, like so many before it, will be heeded is a choice Trent will need to make. Inaction on the part of the university has already and will continue to cause physical, mental, academic, and financial harm to some of its most important, yet obviously underappreciated employees. 

The question comes down to this: Does Trent care?