Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska -- “My job as a dormitory representative is ensuring Airmen in the dorm are taken care of by routing their concerns up the right chain of command and being the dorm’s eyes and ears,” said Airman Hunter Oliver, 301st Intelligence Squadron specialist and Borealis dorm representative.
The executive committee, consisting of the dorm council president, vice president, and soon treasurer, evaluate the problems and suggestions brought up at the monthly meeting by the dorm representatives and dorm residents to the Airman Dormitory Leaders and above.
The dorm representatives are like the middle men between the residents and the executive committee, said Airman 1st Class Ceonna Anderson, 673d Medical Operations Squadron pediatrics administrator and dorm council vice president. They live at the dorms and are a reliable resource when the ADL isn’t available.
The executive committee will always bring up suggestions that better the dorm to the ADLs and issues that only they can resolve or help to.
“Please, tell the ADLs your suggestions about fitness rooms, bulletin boards, and other good ideas,” said Chief Master Sgt. Garry Berry, 673d Air Base Wing command chief. “ADLs do a great job of keeping me informed. I can’t help or bring it up to my boss, unless I know.”
The monthly meetings are every second Thursday at the Arctic Warrior Events Center from 3 to 4 p.m.
“Our monthly meeting is [hosted] to expose any issues in the dorm to ensure better quality of life for the dorm members,” said Anderson. “We would like to see more participation from dorm members [who] are currently living in the dorms to ensure all problems or concerns are fixed promptly.”
If an Airman in the Polaris dorm had an issue and brought it to their dorm representative to be resolved, then another Airman in the Borealis dorm had the same issue, the council can help with potentially better results, having solved the issue before. This is also the case if someone suggested a friendly outing and wanted to know how to set it up and execute the plan; for future trips the council already knows what works.
The dorm council is still growing and looking for new members and dorm representatives to make this possible. They would like to have three representatives for each dorm, including Glacier Hall, Yukla Hall and the new dormitory by the JBER hospital.