RHA candidates discuss platforms
Trayless dining and parking are major issues.
Published Feb. 23, 2010
The Residence Halls Association will host a debate between the two presidential candidate slates Tuesday evening at Pershing Commons. All residence halls members are able to vote Thursday, and the winning candidate will be announced 6 p.m. at the RHA ball. Below, The Maneater takes a look at both presidential slates.
Feuerborn-Thomas
Incumbent Residence Halls Association President Rachael Feuerborn and Vice President Lauren Thomas define their platform as continuing momentum from this year.
"The ideas we had coming into RHA last year were big ideas," St. Charles native Thomas said. "We wanted to see a 360-degree change."
Pioneer efforts in trayless dining marked the administration's first semester.
"With trayless, our organization did it perfect," Kansas City native Feuerborn said. "It got brought up, we did something without upsetting either party and got the results."
The incumbent administration will not bring up trayless until the fall semester of 2010 at the earliest but would most likely put forth another trayless challenge, Feuerborn said.
The slate will look at making RHA more sustainable, including implementing more paperless advertising.
"We'll look into cutting printing on all the things that we can," Thomas said. "We've been trying, but we want to make a bigger effort in the coming year."
Progress has been consistent throughout the past year, the slate stated.
"Last year we got all this bad press about RHA being worthless and circling the drain, or whatever the quote was," Feuerborn said.
Feuerborn said her administration, in tandem with student representatives, has worked to transform RHA into a very useful resource on campus.
"Like I say, it's a gym now, but no one is taking advantage of it," Feuerborn said, comparing the organization to an unused facility. "No one knows we've improved so much, or that we can offer our resources for them"
Grafman-Ross
Parliamentarian Jared Grafman and freshman Colten Ross look to continue legislation momentum this year.
Grafman, a native of St. Louis, saw low student support for trayless and does not want to see trayless dining brought up again in the future.
"Before I came to the university, I was kind of a do-it-all person for my high school," Ross said.
Ross, a native of Bradleyville, listed many organizations in which he was involved while attending high school, such as president of his high school student council and Beta Club at his school, Quiz Bowl captain and other positions.
Neither Ross nor Grafman said they were well versed in parking policies at MU, but both gave ideas for change.
"I think it's been kind of worked out of proportion from when it was originally an issue of convenience and cost, to where we're now trying to rebuild the entire system," Ross said.
Grafman awaits response from university officials to gain knowledge of parking pricing system. He has submitted open records requests to gain more information.
"If what I think is correct, and the students who have to park in the stadium that move their cars on game days have to move their cars on game days, if that price is equal, then I have a problem with that," Grafman said. "I'm looking to hear back on that."
Grafman recognized Internal Committee Chairwoman Emelia Fujita's parking proposal, which put a variable pricing system, as a well thought out option.
The slate wants to see equal opportunity for all residents to stay in residence halls over breaks. They proposed legislation earlier this year, which would have requested all residence halls to remain open over breaks. Although the legislation failed, the slate will consider the issue next year.
"I think, looking back on it, it is a bit extreme for all of the residence halls to be opened at once," Grafman said.
The slate will pursue adding bottles and cans of Dr. Pepper in Mizzou Market, in addition to fountain drinks.