RHA sends representatives to res hall conference
Aside from MU, 44 other universities will attend.
Published Oct. 23, 2009
Seven members of the Residence Halls Association will travel this weekend to Minnesota State University Mankato to participate with 44 other universities in the Midwest Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls.
MACURH is a conference during which representatives have the opportunity to design and facilitate programs and informational services through discussion groups, seminars and speakers, according to MACURH's Web site.
"I submitted one big program to MACRUH conference," National Communications Coordinator Mike Madden said. "That was the big program I've been working on. I want to do that in prep for the national conference, to see what things I can work on."
Programs at the conference can have almost any purpose, as long as they are designed for residents.
"They are a little bit of everything," MACURH 2009 Chairwoman Brianne Theisen said. "They range from ways to become better student leaders, to how to bring new types of entertainment to the different campuses."
RHA is bringing one program to the MACURH conference.
"One program I submitted at the regional conference is a drug awareness program," Madden said. "(It) talks about what drugs are, what they do to you emotionally. If you ever find a person who's in trouble with drugs, then this is where to go."
Madden's program has been in the works for awhile, and is still continuing to improve.
MACURH will take place from Oct. 23 to Oct. 25.
"A lot of schools encounter that problem with the regional conference being on their homecoming date," Madden said. "People get incredibly angry with the committee for putting on the conference during homecoming."
Because RHA Representatives' schedules conflict with Homecoming, and because the conference was relatively early in the year, it was difficult to find enough people to attend the conference, Madden said.
It might have been difficult to find enough representatives because of Homecoming, but these difficulties were not insurmountable.
Theisen said apart from one school, which was only able to send one representative to MACURH, there have been no other problems reported.
Madden said he's confident although participation in the Midwest conference was low, it will be better for the national conference.
"Not a lot of the representatives had a chance to see what MACURH was all about," Madden said. "After it's over, that info will spread pretty quickly. So we'll get a lot of apps for the national conference."
The National Residence Life Conference will take place June 21 through June 24 at University of California, San Diego.