RHA prepares for change this school year

The organization aims to involve more students with upcoming events.

By Luke Udstuen

Published Sept. 22, 2009

The Residence Halls Association is beginning the year with goals of better communication and increased publicity compared to last year, RHA President Rachael Feuerborn said.

"I have lots of goals, I'm a big dreamer," Feuerborn said. "One of my main goals is to facilitate communication with all other organizations and administration on campus."

RHA also added two positions to the executive board. The cabinet programming coordinator was one of the new additions to the board.

A director of communications will replace what last year was a communication committee, according to a previous Maneater report. Morgan Stout will hold this position.

RHA has worked as the voice of the student body with organizations around campus, such as continuing to work with Campus Dining Services on the issue of removing trays from dining halls.

"We're going to try to get trayless dining settled, whichever way that goes," Vice President Lauren Thomas said. "We're working with MSA and CDS to get that figured out, and find out what the residents want to see happen with that."

Paint it Pink is RHA's first program of the year, and will take place the week of Oct. 12. Pink T-shirts will be sold outside the Student Center for a $5 donation, but students can donate any amount. All proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen foundation, Thomas said.

RHA's biggest event of the semester will take place Dec. 9 in Stotler Lounge. It will be an all-night video game festival, national spokesman Mike Madden said.

"We're going to be having pizza, and I'm going to try to really heavily advertise this, because ALS research is something that I'm really passionate about," he said.

There were a variety of games at the festival last year. Madden wouldn't say definitively what was planned for this year. Despite the programs RHA has planned, a big concern for RHA in the past has been student knowledge of the organization.

"One of my main goals is to get our name out there," Feuerborn said. "We can't sell a product if it's not reliable, if it's not a good organization, so (Lauren and I) split up our duties into more external and internal and fixing the internal problems is important."

RHA is the bridge that connects students to the upper administration, Thomas said. The year of RHA is highlighted by conferences designed to improve the programming offered.

"We go to three conferences, two of which we take representatives with us, and there's an application process with that," Thomas said.

The National Association of College and University Residence Halls put on one of the conferences RHA participates in. Madden was fond of his experience last year at NACRUH.

"There are also a lot of fun things that go on. There was a rave, there was a dance, karaoke party, you know, there was a techno party, it was fun, but it's also a time for ideas to be exchanged," Madden said.

This year's NACRUH will take place in June at University of California in San Diego. This year's theme is re*Unite, reCreate and reInspire.

"By re-evaluating the past, we can better meet the needs of the future," the official NACRUH 2010 Web site stated.

In addition to these programs, Feuerborn emphasized approachability. Feuerborn said positive change is important to her.

"How's it going to be different? Completely different," Feuerborn said. "We're going to be more organized. We're going to go through with our promises. We're just going to grow."