Belmont's New Residence Life Director: Dean Breanna McKnight
- Abby Thomas
- 9 hours ago
- 5 min read
Belmont University kicked off this school year with a new Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Residence Life, Breanna McKnight.
In her first month and a half at Belmont, McKnight has brought loads of enthusiasm and is listening to questions and concerns from the community. She said she wants to be someone that students know they can come to with anything.
“I try to be as open as possible,” McKnight said. “Being a student myself on a campus and engaging with those that led me in the same capacity that I'm now leading, I always appreciated it when their door was open to students.”
She doesn't want to feel out of reach for students, she said.
“I always try to find different opportunities to have face-to-face time with our students,” McKnight said.
Her transition has been a smooth one thus far, something she attributes to the pre-existing ResLife staff.
“The learning curve is always just getting to know the campus culture, the campus climate, of course, and just knowing what the student population needs are here,” McKnight said. “But thankfully, I have a wonderful team that is ushering me into that, and so it has been very pleasant.”
Cady Tice, the associate director of ResLife, gives a lot of credit to the staff.
“I think we have a really fantastic team and Residence Life has a long history of supporting our student population and transitioning through constant growth,” Tice said.
She just really loves the community and wants to foster a home for students to feel welcomed and safe.
“My goal is always to implement new practices that best serve our student population, as well as just enhance the systems that we have that will lead to an enhancement of the overall student experience,” McKnight said.
Hannah Christensen, a senior and a resident’s assistant in Russell Hall this year, said she’s appreciated all that McKnight has brought to her role so far.
“I love any conversations that I’ve had in passing with her,” Christensen said. “She’s just such a personable person and someone who brings a lot of light and energy to any room she walks in.”
McKnight went to college at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina, and always knew she wanted to work in the residence world. She even became a resident’s assistant during her freshman year.
“It’s definitely a non-traditional journey into higher education for me,” McKnight said. “I actually was, in undergrad, a healthcare administration major, so I thought what I wanted to do with my life was to run a senior living facility.”
McKnight eventually found her calling in higher education.
“I had a change of heart my senior year,” McKnight said. “I know I wanted to be in this field of helping people and housing people but decided to switch the population that I did that with.”
Her first job in higher education was at High Point University, with subsequent roles at Clemson University and Vanderbilt University. She has since made her way over to Belmont.
Christensen pointed to McKnight’s experience as a key factor in her hiring.
“I think having a new associate dean is super helpful and brings a whole new perspective, because she has her own experience from places she served in the past,” Christensen said. “I’m excited to see the perspective that she brings, as a woman, as a person of color and as someone who hasn’t been with Belmont.”
Tice also noted the significance of having someone come into this role with outside experience and a fresh mindset.
“We’re really excited about Breanna,” Tice said. “We are really looking forward to her continued time here at Belmont, and what she brings to the table and how she is going to carry us into the future.”
Several of McKnight’s colleagues sent her the job description for this role, and with a lot of trust in these people, she decided to give it a shot.
“I took a hard look at the position and saw that it was something that aligned with my career goals and what I wanted to do within my next step,” McKnight said.
What drew McKnight to the world of student housing was her role as an RA at Francis Marion.
“I really found a lot of value in the development that I experienced, and I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of the development of hundreds if not thousands of students at this point who have been in some equivalent role of RA,” McKnight said. “They're called different things at different places, and so being able to develop students and create a residential environment in which they can thrive… I truly believe a college experience should be one that challenges people to grow in ways that will benefit them later in life.”
What really drives McKnight’s passion in her work is getting to watch the students she works with grow and flourish.
“I love seeing a student come in their freshman year, timid, a little afraid to jump in and seeing them leave senior year, bold, boastful and able to articulate what they’ve learned in their experience,” McKnight said.
Alongside making campus feel safe for students, McKnight also wants to build up student leaders.
“I believe true leadership is felt and not just seen,” McKnight said. “I take the role of leading others seriously, so that for me, is the reason that I still have a passion about being in a leadership capacity and doing the work that I do.”
Christensen’s time as an RA has been the most important thing to her in college. She even hopes to become a residence director one day.
“I've been able to enact all the dreams that I've been dreaming about since I was a freshman in high school, and I've loved it so much that I want to continue pursuing it,” Christensen said.
On a day-to-day basis, McKnight is communicating and collaborating with other leadership organizations on campus.
“There’s really no part of this campus that housing does not touch in some form or fashion,” she said. “I think that collaboration is key to being able to build out the best student experience.”
At the end of the day, McKnight wants students to know she truly cares about them.
“I know that the college experience can be challenging at times. One of the things that I embrace is the challenges that come along with stepping into a new thing. And so I welcome students to engage with me at their comfort level,” McKnight said. “My door is open; I would love to be a listening ear.”
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This article was written by Abby Thomas