Welcome home

Life on campus inevitably revolves around the place that students call home. The typical college student spends a large part of his life in a dormitory or apartment, and he undoubtedly wishes that part of his life to be as comfortable and "homey" as possible.

Tech's Residence Hall Association (RHA) seeks to accommodate those wishes, doing its best to ensure all students have an enjoyable life when living on campus.

RHA is a student-led governing board for Housing residents. It also serves as an umbrella organization for the various hall councils and has three primary branches: executive, legislative and judicial.

The executive branch does everything from generating ideas for campus-wide events to reviewing financial transactions. The legislative branch discusses issues that affect campus and also authorizes funding for different events put on or sponsored by RHA. The judicial branch is responsible for hearing cases of Housing violations and handling inter-branch conflicts.

"All of these branches work together to ensure that the residents' needs and issues are represented to the rest of the student body and the administration," said Tim Gallagher, president of RHA. "We [also] promote leadership development for the residents by offering countless ways to get involved [with RHA] and make a difference on campus."

In the past, RHA has worked with numerous organizations and hosted a number of significant events on campus to make students feel more at home. Among these events are Poker Nights, Bingo Nights and campus beautification.

"Traditionally, we host at least one campus-wide event per month. Some of our favorites have been our Ramblin' Nights, two formals, Trivia Nights, Towers Haunted House and annual RezFest event in the spring," Gallagher said.

"In addition to the events we host on our own, RHA co-sponsors many large events around campus including Team Buzz, Tech Beautification Day, the Campus Safety Walk...and we work with the Women's Resource Center for the Women's Poker Night," Gallagher said.

In addition to big events hosted by the entire organization, smaller weekly events are hosted by residence halls' own Peer Leaders (PLs) and Community Advisors (CAs), who are hired by Housing.

"As a PL, I host events for just my hall, floor and building. They range from weekly TV show nights to review sessions in the basements, movies in Brittain Rec, Halloween trick-or-treat and Haunted House night," said Mallory Williams, a Peer Leader.

Every year, RHA looks for ways to improve on the past and bring new and exciting things to integrate the student body and improve residence life. "We...just rolled out our newly designed website. That will provide the residents with more information about what RHA is doing," Gallagher said.

"We are working on what I call diversifying and unifying our programs. This means we are trying to bring programs other than purely social [ones], while ensuring that our programs all focus on our goal of building community and improving residence life," Gallagher said. "We are trying to target upperclassman apartments to ensure that they stay involved on campus through programs that focus on their needs."

One example of such a program that Gallagher highlighted is called Life Series, which will bring educational events to student apartments that focus on teaching life skills such as cooking, car maintenance, financial responsibility, resume writing and so on.

Gallagher added that these programs take many different shapes, ranging from guest speakers and workshops to a "much more light-hearted and fun Iron Chef night."

"This year we are helping with the summer reading program by facilitating discussion groups around campus," Williams said.

Since RHA is a residence association, student participation is an integral part of its function, and there is not a better time to get involved in making a change to improve campus life than now.

"This is a very exciting time not just for RHA but for all student governing boards on campus. The makeup of campus is changing and new issues are arising every day. There is nowhere to go from here but up, and I have great confidence that all student leaders and student organizations are going to make tremendous progress towards improving student life and ensuring that the needs of the students are heard as we advance through these changes," Gallagher said.

There are numerous ways for students to have a voice in RHA activities. The easiest way is to attend hall council meetings and express concerns. Additionally, residents can join committees and have a direct impact there. They may also attend Legislative Council meetings (Wednesdays at 9 p.m. in the Flag Building) and bring up any relevant issues.

"The best way for students to advocate change is to attend hall council and submit bills. Hall council is the governing body over the residence halls. It is run by residents that work with their fellow residents and they can decide what to change. They decide everything from their quiet hours to what their money will be spent on," Williams said.

"The issues are not just limited to Housing; if there is any concern the residents have, we are here to address them. If it is an issue RHA is not set up to handle, we will ensure that the resident is referred to the people who can handle it," Gallagher said.

For more information on RHA, check out www.rha.gatech.edu.