All undergrad RAs are supervised by full-time residential staff at some level. Either they are directly supervised by a full-time residential staff member, or they are supervised by a part-time/paraprofessional graduate student who is supervised by a full-time residential staff member. I can’t think of a single college at which RAs are going it alone or are unsupported by full-time professional staff who are trained. The housing director is certainly a professionally trained staff member with years of experience. The director of residential life at my former graduate institution is a woman with several years of experience in res life AND she has a background in mental health counseling.
Advocating “skipping” the RA to go straight to someone else, like housing or the dean, is not necessarily the right move. Certain problems may indeed be above the RA’s “pay grade” - but part of RA training is knowing which of all the intricate offices and people who are on campus at all hours of the day or night who are actually responsible for helping students in times of specific crises, and can get support to students faster than a student can probably get themselves. The RA knows how to get in touch with the on-call dean, the 24-hour nurse, the rape crisis hotline, the 5 nearest emergency rooms, the appropriate police precinct…they also know how to defuse a situation in the short-term and to wait for the next level of response.
For example, when I was a residential hall director as a graduate student, my on-duty phone number was not public knowledge. I could only be reached by an RA during my on-duty hours. Any student could’ve knocked on my door for help, but few of the students in my building knew I was the graduate hall director, even though I never hid the fact and introduced myself to all of the students in all of buildings I oversaw in the beginning of the school year (and regularly sent out emails, and had office hours, AND was searchable in the directory. People were just way more familiar with their RA). But I was precisely the person who should have been called if people were throwing things at 2 am, because within 15 minutes that would initiate a chain of events that could potentially get a student in psychiatric care *that night/i. But in order to get me…you had to call an RA.
Furthermore, going directly to housing wouldn’t have helped, because housing and residential life were separate offices. Housing was responsible for the physical rooms and amenities. So housing would’ve had to contact the right person in res life, which may have taken a couple days…And honestly, public safety/security is often going to refer you straight back to the RA/res life. For example, at my university, if a student called public safety to say they were unsafe in their room due to their roommate, guess who public safety would’ve called? Me. (Or my RA. Who would’ve called me.) We might have gone over together (public safety usually accompanied during potential mental health crises) but they were just there for support; the issue was handled by residential life.
The RA is always the right person to go to, because even if s/he can’t solve her/himself it that night, s/he has access to a broad range of services/networks that can help him/her solve it along with or for your student. Nobody is expecting a college junior to take the weight of the world on their shoulders, which is why on-call structures exist. Right now at most colleges across the country there are dozens (hundreds?) of deans who makes six figures who are holding old Verizon flip phones with the Most Annoying Ringtones in the event something truly heinous happens on campus…but the way to reach them is if the RA gets called first.