Residence hall students discussed problems between roommates and within the community Tuesday night.

Housing and Dining hosted Conflict Management/Roommate Mediation program in the Lincoln Commons Room to help students know how to handle mediation situations.

Health educator Brad Badgley used his experience working for Health Enhancement and his previous experience as a Grant Hall Director to provide advice and answer students’ questions.

“With conflict in general, you want to resolve it at the lowest level possible,” Badgley said. “If you have conflict with your roommate, you want to resolve that problem with your roommate first.”

If that doesn’t help resolve the problem, only then should a student go to the Community Adviser, Badgley said.

Douglas Community Adviser Stuart Glassett attended the program and said he thought Badgley’s advice would be helpful to residents.

“I really like his philosophy of talking to the roommate first, because there’s only so much I can do,” Glassett said. “It’s not quite the same training CAs get, but it’s good advice.”

Some of the largest sources of conflict between roommates are problems with differences in schedules, basic housekeeping and leaving the door unlocked, Badgley said. One way to avoid these problems is to fill out the Roommate Agreements he added.

“It’s an important document and students should always refer back to it,” Badgley said.

Tyler Dittoe, freshman undecided major, has not had many conflicts with his roommate but still thought Badgley’s advice was helpful.

“The advice could apply to any student, really,” Dittoe said.

This event was part of the First-Year Success Series put on by Orientation and First-Year Experience.