2024 STUDENT HANDBOOK
KSR
Welcome
Welcome to your new home! We want Res to be more than just a place to live, more than a roof over your head and more than a place where you can get a meal. We want Res to be a place that you look forward to returning to at the end of the day. We want you to feel relaxed when you're here, not like you're a stranger in someone else's house. Our hope is that this is a place where you feel like you belong.
A supportive community
For the Res to be a home, we need to be a supportive community. We need to look out for each other and care for those who are struggling, include those who are shy, and lend a hand to those in need. To be a community, we need to share together some common values. We talk about our values later in the handbook. We encourage each of you to read through them carefully and make a commitment to try and live them out while you’re here.
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This is what we want for everyone, not just you. That is, we are a small community – or a big family. Being part of a bigger whole means that we all have to keep the needs and wishes of others in mind. It means we all need to compromise and remember that we can’t have everything exactly as we like it.
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Living at KSR is something for which you can be grateful. It is a wonderful place. It is an experience to be embraced. The educational journey each of you has chosen to take includes your life together at KSR. While you learn biology, history, design principles or marketing strategy at University/TAFE, you learn social skills, respect, compassion and hopefully how to do your own washing through your time in residence!
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This handbook is designed to give you all the information you need to enjoy your experience at KSR. It identifies our values and aims and explains what daily life is like and how things work.
There’s a range of rules and procedures with which you'll need to familiarise yourself with. We try our best to make sure that any rules we have are designed to help ensure that this is a place where each person is able to feel at home as best as possible, while ensuring that we uphold our overarching ethos, meet safety standards and abide by legal requirements.
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Your feedback and ideas are always welcomed – grab us for a chat, a coffee or send us a message on Slack!
Our aims & purpose
The residence was established in 1962 by the Kew Baptist Church as a way of providing a caring and safe environment for students. We exist to provide affordable accommodation amidst a supportive community in a homely environment.
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Our commitment is to provide an experience in which you will feel a sense of belonging, explore a range of aspects of life – including your academic pursuits, your own values and opinions, and the challenges that come with new experiences and difference of perspective.
It is our hope that by providing a space where you belong to a bigger whole, there will be a sense of security as you undergo your exploration. Ultimately, we want to see each person grow as a result of his or her experience at the Res.
Shared Values
To be part of the community means that you accept what it means to share in the following values and to strive to live accordingly:
Respect
Good, healthy societies are built on respect.
At KSR, we seek to respect others, the environment and ourselves. This means that we assume that other people and the world around us are deserving of dignity. We choose life-giving words and deeds that encourage and sustain people and our natural world.
Openness
Exploring our beliefs and values.
We encourage – and assist – students at KSR to consider what they think and feel about political, social and spiritual matters. We do not seek conformity and nor do we think that views accepted now should be set forever. It is the commitment to being open-minded and applying one’s opinions to rigorous reflection and respectful debate that is part of the KSR way.
Care
Focussing on the needs of others
We live in the kind of society that is often criticised for being individualistic and selfish. At KSR, we believe that adopting an attitude of care helps us to focus on the needs of others. When we see someone struggling, whether at Res or elsewhere, we want to be a people who seek to provide practical support or a listening ear.
Serve
Serving each other and the community
We believe that living a life of service is more fulfilling than self-indulgence. Part of the rhythm of life at KSR is to serve each other and the wider community. We urge every person – both staff and students – to choose at least one service opportunity in which to participate as part of the KSR experience. By developing this rhythm now, we hope it will continue to be foundational to each student’s life in the future.
Learning
We are a learning community.
Our commitments to open-mindedness, to respect and to service are all ways in which we affirm that we are here to learn. This is a place where it is hoped that all members of the community choose an attitude of learning whether it be academically, socially, emotionally or spiritually. An attitude of learning means that we expect both mistakes and, subsequently, growth.
Take a tour
Want to walk through the Res again? Check out this video below to experience what it is like to live and walk around the Res!