A new Columbia Residential Life initiative known as the “sociogram” was paused this week after quickly becoming the subject of surveillance concerns, Sidechat posts, and growing confusion among both students and RAs. Introduced as a pilot program in early April by ResLife’s Wellness and Inclusion Committee, the sociogram was intended to map relationships and connections within residence halls, but an uneven rollout and lack of clear communication led to widespread misinterpretation of its purpose.

A new Residential Life initiative known as the “sociogram” was paused this week after quickly becoming the subject of controversy, Sidechat posts, and growing confusion among both students and RAs.

Introduced as a pilot program earlier this semester, the sociogram was intended to map relationships and connections within residence halls, but an uneven rollout and lack of clear communication led to widespread misinterpretation of its purpose.

What Residential Life introduced as a community-mapping tool quickly became something else entirely in the eyes of many students.

The sociogram was piloted this semester for Residential Advisers (RAs) within Columbia’s Residential Life department. In theory, the goal was relatively straightforward: give RAs a way to map out connections on their floors, including who knows each other, shared interests, and general social dynamics, so that building community later in the semester would take less guesswork and, ideally, less time. If the pilot is implemented more broadly, it could eventually replace this year’s Connect Experience, saving time for both RAs and residents.

But the rollout was anything but simple. RAs across buildings received different instructions depending on their Residential Hall Director (RHD). Most were told to base the sociogram strictly on existing information known to them through past Connect Experience conversations. Others were encouraged to include things like clubs, majors, or general social groupings. In some cases, guidance was vague enough that people were not sure where the line was, especially around what counted as appropriate or necessary information.

In official guidance, the sociogram was framed as a community-building tool. One RHD’s email to RAs described it as a way to “understand the connections (or lack thereof)” within a floor and “make informed decisions for resident connections.”

At the same time, the scope of the assignment could feel expansive. Suggested elements included not just basic identifiers like names and room numbers, but also who residents socialize with, who attends events, who has sought support from an RA, and “students of concern.” Within Residential Life, that phrase refers to wellness-related concerns, a category RAs say falls within the department’s usual scope.

For some RAs, that breadth contributed to confusion, especially in the absence of clear, consistent boundaries across buildings. Since different RHDs sent out different information instead of centralized guidance, many RAs were left trying to figure out what the assignment was actually supposed to look like.

The project was also framed as a required assignment, with expectations that RAs would present their sociograms to their teams. At the same time, there was no clear, unified explanation of ResLife’s intentions or the project’s limits. That inconsistency left a lot of room for interpretation, and misinterpretation.

At a recent RA feedback lunch, Executive Director of Residential Life Tara Hanna said the department had never intended the sociogram to function as surveillance, but acknowledged that the rollout came at a time when trust was already fragile. She said the department has long been concerned about student loneliness and finding ways to reach residents, especially in the years after COVID, but added that it is now harder to do that work when students do not trust the larger institution.

From conversations with multiple RAs, the general sentiment was not that the initiative had bad intentions. If anything, several described it as “out of touch” or poorly timed, especially given the current campus climate. One RA in an upperclassmen building said there are “valid concerns about surveillance right now,” but emphasized that this specific project “was never meant to be that,” and that information was not being collected into any kind of central database, only shared at the RHD level.

In practice, some RAs said the assignment itself was minimal. One RA in Carman Hall completed a sociogram for nearly 60 residents in about an hour, using only existing knowledge and brief notes, around three bullet points per resident, without collecting any new information. She said some people seemed to think RAs wanted more information than they actually did, creating a major disconnect as some residents assumed detailed personal information was being recorded.

Still, perception mattered more than intent once the sociogram started circulating beyond Residential Life.

Concerns escalated after an RA created posters describing the sociogram as a form of surveillance, citing the language in their RHD’s email and the limited explanation of the project’s purpose.

Those claims quickly circulated on Sidechat, where posts framed the initiative as Columbia asking RAs to map student relationships for potential disciplinary use. Student groups, including the Columbia University Student Union and Sunrise Columbia, amplified similar concerns on Instagram, warning that students were being monitored.

The Student Union and Sunrise post framed the initiative as proof that “the university wants your RAs to spy on your personal life,” claiming that Residential Life was asking RAs to monitor information about residents’ friends, romantic partners, organizational affiliations, hobbies, and whether they seemed “less visible or hard to read.” The post then spread among students, especially in the absence of formal communication from Residential Life.

For some RAs, that framing was frustrating. One said the Instagram post was “like fearmongering for no reason.” Another said, “It’s just not true and I’m sure it just makes people more anxious and not trust their RAs.” This frustration stemmed from a disconnect between the intentions of the activity and how it turned into rumors that RAs were being asked to spy on residents.

RA Zyaire Gale (CC’27) called the post “misinformation,” saying RAs were not asked to research residents or track digital footprints, as the post suggested. He said he had received no guidance from Residential Life instructing RAs to “reread emails or gather receipts from residents,” and argued that the post left out key context, including how ResLife defines “students of concern.” Gale said he was not denying that Columbia surveils students, but stressed that RAs are not part of that system and have never been told to collect information for it. “Your RA doesn’t have time to spy on you, nor do they get paid enough to,” he said.

That reaction also tapped into a wider sense of distrust already present on campus, especially as students pointed to Columbia’s recent disciplinary climate and broader concerns about surveillance. Maddox Mayo (CC’27), a resident involved with Sunrise, said the sociograms were “at best unnecessary and at worst a dangerous step” toward university surveillance of the student body. But RAs say that was not the assignment they received. In the guidance given by one RHD, the sociogram was described as a “manageable, reflective end of year activity” meant to show what RAs know about their residents and how they connect, not a directive to investigate or report on students’ private lives.

For many students, however, claims of surveillance did not feel far-fetched. In the past year, disciplinary actions, including responses to student organizing and even flyer posting, have contributed to a broader sense that administrative systems can be used punitively. Especially for students who experienced the unrest and crackdowns of 2024, which have continued into this year, the idea of the university mapping social networks hit a nerve. It also reflected how difficult it can be for students to distinguish between different Columbia offices and how those offices have been used in disciplinary cases.
At the same time, many RAs say the narrative spread about the sociogram does not reflect what they were actually asked to do.

Several described having friends and residents reach out asking if they were being “tracked” or reported on. That disconnect has created a new concern: that residents may now feel less comfortable coming to RAs with real issues, out of fear that their information could be documented or misused.
RAs emphasized that they were never instructed to surveil, investigate, or collect additional personal data on residents. But in the absence of clear, consistent communication from Residential Life regarding the pilot, that distinction was largely lost as the story spread online and in person.

Following backlash from both RAs and students, the sociogram initiative has now been paused for the rest of the semester.

The episode highlights a broader problem at Columbia regarding transparency. When communication is inconsistent and trust is already fragile due to administrative decisions, even internal programs can be read as something much bigger and more sinister. It also reflects the gap many see between student-facing staff, like RAs and RHDs, and the higher-level administrative decisions that shape their work. Often, students do not have a clear view of how Columbia’s bureaucratic systems operate, especially when the institution as a whole has lost their trust. For RAs, the aftermath has been less about a single paused project than about how to rebuild trust on their floors while navigating policies they did not design and were not fully briefed on.

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