Students living on campus can benefit from the services of Residence Hall Assistance.
RHA is “an organization of residents for the residents,” Juanita Rodrigue, president of RHA, said. The organization is in place to help students better their living and campus experience.
This semester RHA is trying to incorporate more students and to get them involved in the program.
“It’s important for students to find their niche or to find a group to belong to, and we want to be one of those organizations where the students feel like they can call it home or home away from home,” Jennifer White, student life coordinator, said.
Other than being available to assist residents, the RHA also plans an assortment of activities in which residents can participate. These activities can vary from dorm to dorm or from floor to floor.
Some of the activities that RHA are planning this semester are a Sadie Hawkins themed dance, which they will call a Colonel Dance. They have not come up with a theme for the dance as of yet, but are planning to have flowers for students to buy, music, pictures and a fake marriage chapel for students to get “hitched.”
Toward the end of the semester, RHA will plan a relay race event, which would consist of water balloons, potato sack races and other activities.
RHA is also sponsoring ten people to go to a leadership conference. “We are sponsoring people to go to Leadership Loyola on Jan. 31,” White said. This conference is open to the entire student body.
Usually the activities take place during the week because RHA doesn’t know how many students stay on weekends. RHA plans to survey residence hall students to see how many stay on campus during the weekends and how many would stay if there were activities to participate in.
If the majority of the students answer yes, then RHA will plan more activities on the weekends. They will also try to get the Student Union to stay open on weekends so students will have a place besides the cafeteria to eat.
Residence hall students must pay a five dollar fee to receive their key when they check in on their first day. The funds from this fee are used to pay for the activities that the RHA sponsors for the residents.