RHA slates campaign for Thursday's presidential elections

Communication, budgets, safety and student rights were all major issues.

By Krissy Tripp

Published Feb. 23, 2009

Feuerborn-Thomas

Residence Halls Association Treasurer Rachael Feuerborn and National Communications Coordinator Lauren Thomas have their hearts set on improvement.

If elected, they plan to hire an executive board right away and create as many bonding experiences as possible before the term starts. They believe this will help create a group that works well together.

Feuerborn stressed the importance of making sure residents are being represented by their RHA representatives. They plan on explaining RHA to new residents when they move in and setting meeting standards during the first meeting to let students know if they want to join and how.

The slate would also look into improving communications. Thomas would consider moving the meetings to a night when it would more convenient for Greek residents to come to meetings.

Feuerborn said they would work to improve relationships with the hall presidents.

"We want to start a newsletter with all upcoming events in RHA and legislation," Thomas said.

As treasurer, Feuerborn designed a budget that will now be used as the standard. RHA has never had a standard budget set before. She worked to make sure everyone could see exactly where money is being spent and set up guidelines to prevent too much rollover. She also created the hall spending budget to make sure they have the guidelines to spend funds efficiently and effectively. Less rollover means students are getting what they paid for instead of paying for the activities of future students.

As NCC, Thomas goes to three conferences a year, which allows her to see how other schools run their RHA. Thomas gets new ideas at these conferences as well as a place to discuss them.

Lawrence-Cleair

Residence Halls Association Congress Speaker Blake Lawrence and Mizzou Quads President Jonathan Cleair described their slate as the three 'R's: residents' rights, RHA growth and results.

"Results are what Jon and I bring most concretely to the platform," Lawrence said, promising to work actively to get things done.

Lawrence said they want to emphasize residents' rights especially because upperclassmen are making a choice to live in the residence halls instead of nearby apartments. Students are paying for a living and learning experience, he said.

The two believe as the freshman class sizes get bigger, so should RHA, Cleair said. They want to keep RHA representative and active by working with more congress members and other organizations on campus.

Both feel they have already worked toward these standards while in RHA.

Lawrence said in previous years he petitioned to make the MU Police Department more accountable because students felt there was too much major crime on campus, and he wanted to promote a safer environment. He also compiled a list of campus leaders as a Sexual Health Advocate Peer Education member to create a task force to bring contraceptives in the residence halls.

This year, the pair worked together to create bills that brought more rights to extended campus. Cleair's bill brought light to the lack of speed bumps, recycling and smoking rights at the extended campus locations. He felt all students, regardless of whether they lived on campus or on so-called extended campus, deserved the right to safety, sustainability and smoking.

During the trayless debates in RHA, Cleair voted to table discussion on the legislation until they received more resident feedback.

Wood-Crawford

Resident Halls Association President Robert Wood is running for re-election with a new running mate, freshman Mike Crawford. The slate is focusing on providing leadership opportunities, keeping MU safe and truly representing the voice of the residents.

"We also want to be approachable," Wood said. "We have Facebooks and want people to invite us as friends. If we're walking on the street we want to be able to talk."

Wood said they also hope to improve communications between the residents and RHA with bulletin boards, pamphlets and newsletters. They're looking to have more participation in meetings by telling residents about RHA when they first move in.

Crawford said they want to encourage representatives to spread RHA news to their residents.

They also want to put video cameras in residence halls as well as offer leadership training to all residents.

Both Wood and Crawford would bring years of leadership experience to the position.

"As the current president, I already have several established residents with other staff to keep the organization working fluidly with other organizations and departments," Wood said.

He also stressed that his six years of living in residence halls and being active in hall governments has given him a good foundation.

Crawford said he was involved in high school government and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. He interns for Rep. Billy Pat Wright, R-Dexter.

"I have experience with governments on all levels," Crawford said.

The Feb. 24 report "RHA Slates Campaign for Thursday's Election" stated that Rep. Billy Pat Wright said "I have experience with governments on all levels." Crawford actually made that statement. The Maneater regrets the error.