In 2007, Wayne Schields was offered the position of assistant housing director. Then he had to explain to family and friends where his wife and him would live: a freshman, all male residence hall.

According to Schields, when Housing Director Michael Mills approached him about applying for the position, Schields was adamantly against it.

Schields said friends thought Schields and his wife were crazy to move into a residence hall. Despite naysayers, the couple moved into Pierce Hall in 2007.

Schields credits his wife for making the decision to transition into dorm life. He said his family had to adjust to scaling-down their living arrangements, which meant leaving their four-bedroom home in Wichita Falls, and settling into life submerged in campus life.

“It required a lengthy adjustment period, but now it is simply where we live,” Schields said.

Two years later the couple had a baby girl.

According to Schields, his toddler is enjoying her time living and campus and always looks forward to playing with who she calls “the big kids.”

“I enjoy the energy and campus environment that the students bring and the close proximity to everything on campus is definitely a plus,” he said.

Although he still rents out his home in Wichita Falls, Schields admits that he still periodically misses his home.

“The main frustration I had [in the beginning] was never really being able to be ‘off work,’” he said, “Sometimes, by the end of the semester, I’m ready to see the students leave, quickly!”

However, once the new semester approaches, he said he actually starts to miss the residents and eagerly awaits their return.

Schields will graduate with his Masters in Political Science this December and plans to start a doctoral program next fall.

Similarly, Angie Reay and her family reside on campus.

Reay began her work as a student employee for Housing from 2005-2007 and became Killingsworth Hall director in 2007.  In her sixth year with MSU, she has moved up the ranks from complex coordinator to assistant housing director.

Reay graduated from MSU in 2007 with an undergraduate degree in early childhood, and received her master’s in education in 2009. Reay’s husband, Christopher, is also an MSU master’s graduate and in his third year as the women’s basketball assistant coach. The Reay’s were married in 2008 and their daughter arrived on October 2011.

Reay resides in Sunwatcher Tower with her family, and has been there for about two and a half years.

“Living on campus is great because we are right in the center of town. We are really close to everything,” she said.

Reay oversees the supervision and training of new hall directors and resident assistant staff.  She also oversees programming staff selection and various administrative duties in the housing office.

“I love feeling connected to the campus,” she said. “The obvious perks are the short commute to anywhere she needs to be on campus.”

Living in such proximity to students has its ups and downs, Reay said.

“Like some residents, noise is sometimes an issue,” she said. “But I have lived on campus since 2002, so I’m used to it.”

Reay said she hopes to stay on campus for a while because she loves the people she works with and really enjoys being able to work with college students.

Schields and Reay live on campus as a required part of their job, Mills said.

“Nationwide, it is very common in university housing settings that hall director staff live in the facilities they manage,” Mills continued.

They do not have the option to live on or off campus and their place of residence is assigned to them based on which job they have been hired to do, he said.