It’s an intensely muggy Saturday night, and an expectant hush fills the air. I am standing on the Bowld patio, covered in body paint, glitter across my cheekbones, crushed between people from my dorm. The RDs are about to announce the winners of the ResLife Half-K, and the whole crowd is tense with excitement.
Dylan Runions takes the mic. “Who thinks they won tonight?”
The crowd erupts. Somehow, I can’t even see straight from the noise. Screams and chants and cheers mingle into complete chaos. I’m cheering too, of course, but whatever noise I’m able to make is completely drowned out by the group next to me; the Ladies of Lee, a mob of bouncing, screaming, green-clad freshman girls. At the very center of that group, waving their dorm flag, covered in green glitter, is Alana Williams, the Lee RA.
Chances are that if you’ve been to any Reslife events since fall of 2025, you know who the Ladies of Lee are. They’re impossible to miss. Lee is consistently the loudest dorm (I won’t call them the most hype, because someone will get mad at me for that, but they’re a strong contender). When I asked Lauren Knudsen, a sophomore Nursing major and former Lee resident, to describe their community, she laughed.
“Hype!” she said. “We were definitely the hype people. But we couldn’t have done it without Alana. She’s like, the galvanizer. It doesn’t happen without her.”
Another former resident, Marena Jacobs, agreed: “Everyone was really close-knit, and really, it was because of Alana.”
If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her, Alana Williams is a junior theology and English literature double major. She started as the RA of Lee in 2025 at the beginning of her sophomore year. When I asked why she decided to become an RA so early, Williams told me that she was carrying on a legacy from her freshman RA, Kianna Coleman, who made her feel welcome at Union in her first year. She says that through Coleman’s example, she “really got a sense that what the job is about is helping to cultivate a culture of joyful community, especially in the freshman class.”
Joy is a word that consistently came up as Williams described her work as an RA.
“There were so many days when I would finish whatever work I was doing as an RA, and I would think, ‘This is my job?’” she said. “You know, like, what, this is my job! And I’m just so grateful for that.”
That joy is clear to others, too; the three residents of hers I interviewed used words like “bubbly,” “enthusiastic,” “ray of sunshine.” Williams’s love for her job and the girls she leads could not be more obvious.
Of course, no matter how much she enjoys it, it’s not an easy job. Being an RA is demanding; it requires hard work, long hours, and flexibility, both in terms of time and emotional availability.
“Sometimes it’s really draining,” Williams admits. “There’s only so many really heavy or important conversations I can have in a week. It’s a job where, you know, even when it slows down, you just keep giving and giving.”
However, something I found really beautiful was how multiple of her residents talked about her specifically as a great listener.
“One thing that she did really, really well—she’s just such a good listener,” said Marena Jacobs, a former resident of Alana’s. “You sit down with her, and you feel like she’s absorbing everything you say. She doesn’t just spit something out, she really sits and thinks about it.” (I noticed that myself when I interviewed her; Williams never rushed to answer a question. She gave me a thoughtful answer, regardless of how simple the question was.)
That ability to connect deeply has allowed Williams to serve the freshmen well, a group with a unique need for a feeling of community. Williams has been in Heritage with the freshman ever since she started as an RA, and she sees it as a great niche to serve in.
“It gives you such a unique opportunity to minister to people in a really strange time for them,” she told me. “You get to introduce them to the college you love so much for the first time and help them with all the joys and the challenges of that.”
Williams says she views this job as a chance to be faithful in her growth as a Christian.
“I think the biggest challenge for me, but really for any Christian,” Williams said, “is to take up their cross and do all the normal stuff really well.”
I had never thought of it in precisely those terms, but I carried that phrase with me through the rest of the day, even now as I write this article. God places this calling on all of us, and in many ways it’s not an easy one. I think about the passage in Matthew 25:21 where the master of the house says, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.”
I hope that will one day be said of me, and I think it can be truly said of Alana Williams.
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