One Friday night in Gerig’s lobby, new Hall Director Skylar Sable stepped into the middle of a noisy Welcome Weekend tradition. Instead of slipping past the crowd towards her apartment, she sat down and joined her residence halls’ annual Mafia game.
This fall, as she steps into the role of hall director for both Gerig and Breuninger Halls, Sable is focused on listening to and walking alongside students. A two-time graduate of Indiana Wesleyan University, with both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work, she is drawing directly from her college years to shape her leadership.
While her degree gave her a strong foundation, her years in student housing gave her real-world practice. Before landing at Taylor, she learned how residence life operates from the ground up.
Having served as both resident assistant and assistant resident director at IWU, Sable credits her growth to the lessons she learned from her own mistakes as a student leader — and to the mentors who believed in her ability to learn and grow from those experiences.
“I think back to my sophomore year ... this student who’s trying to be a leader, who has no idea what they’re doing, ... who made every mistake in the book ... and was still given a chance the next year to be in a leadership position that was even higher than that,” Sable said.
Recognizing how overcommitment and burnout can affect students, she is making it a priority to help residents discover the value of slowing down and practicing intentional rest.
To make that a reality, Sable is introducing a culture of sabbath in both halls. She leads by example, disconnecting from work emails and messages on weekends. She encourages student leaders and residents alike to reclaim their time and nurture their spiritual well-being.
“In our college time we’re trying to make the most of every moment and maximize our time, go to every single event, do every single thing — and that’s great,” Sable said. “Also, this is a time where we learn how to rest and how to be in the mundane moments of life.”
Her student leaders have seen firsthand how she brings an open, collaborative approach to leadership. They note that Sable regularly invites input from her team and offers clear advice and practical solutions to residence life challenges.
“She’s a very good listener, a very good encourager, ready to give advice, but also ready to just listen and say, ‘This might take some time. Let’s find a solution,” Kathryn Monsma, a Discipleship Assistant on 3G, Gerig’s third floor, said.
In addition to encouraging rest and connection, Sable is intentionally bridging the divide between DAs and Personnel Assistants.
This year, Sable set a new tone by bringing teams from Gerig and Breu together from the start. The two residence halls may already be connected by a shared hallway, but Sable is focused on connecting them relationally, building a cross-hall unity that is already reshaping the culture.
“In the past, it felt like PAs and DAs were only unified for individual floors, with no overlap across the whole dorm community,” Hudson Bell, the Discipleship Coordinator for Gerig and Breu, said, “but in training week with Skylar, we were together so much that it finally felt like, ‘Oh, I know the PA in Gerig.’ I didn’t have that experience last year.”
Sable hopes these shifts among student leaders will spark a stronger sense of community for everyone, not just PAs and DAs.
For residents, that connection expands their available support network. By bringing the two staffs together, Sable is making leaders from both halls accessible to students across both buildings.
Her vision is for the two residence halls to feel like one home, where students can look out for each other and find support, both spiritually and academically.
“It’s really nice to see how she’s not just all business and logistics,” Gretchin Ridder, a DA on Third Breu said. “She’s also caring about our spirituality, that we’re getting rest and being fueled up so we can pour into the other people on our floor.”
With Sable leading the way, Gerig and Breu are set to grow into even stronger, more connected communities in the months ahead.
