Sole RHA President Candidate David Cooper's Platform

David Cooper for RHA President

Programming

In the past, the Residence Hall Association has always offered many programs. As a general rule, these programs have not had high attendance records. I believe the lack of student participation comes from insufficient publicity, programming that does not fulfill residents' needs, and the lack of support from area governments for campuswide events.

Event Turnout: My goal is to have better turnout at events that we organize. RHA needs to organize events earlier and publicize them early enough to give students time to find out about them.

Events: A larger variety of programs become available for residents when RHA has a more balanced state of educational, social and community service programming. Every student should be able to find a program that interests him or her.

Event Planning: I will endeavor to increase the amount of work done with other student organizations, as well as with other residence halls, to put on better-attended late-night events.

Tutoring: Dey Hall offers tutoring in many different subjects, but the majority of students who would benefit from this extra help live on South Campus. Through RHA, I propose to make this tutoring program available in South Campus residence halls.

Enhancements

The process of obtaining enhancements has been difficult and time consuming. When an enhancement breaks, it is imperative that RHA is able to replace or fix it quickly. Under the current process, it takes at least a month for the problem to be remedied. RHA needs to streamline this process so area governments can use it in a more timely fashion, and make it easier for them to access the money they have been given.

Process: RHA needs the enhancement budget process to become more regulated, therefore fairer to the residents. I will make sure that all of the area governments report the exact enhancements they have, including the condition of that equipment, on a standard form three scheduled times per semester. This information will then be compared with other residence halls in order to distribute money specified for enhancements more equally.

Fund raising: RHA will continue the current fund-raising events of selling Microfridges, residence hall room carpeting and diploma plaque fund raising. I would also like to hear other ideas for fund raising, and consider their applicability to RHA.

Strength From Within

Currently RHA offers social, community service and educational programming on the individual residence hall, area and campus level. As the present area governor of Hinton James Residence Hall, I know the heart of RHA comes from the area level.

Area Strength: RHA needs to develop and maintain strong area governments to encourage resident involvement and to guarantee that residents' needs are met. Who better knows the needs of a resident than the area government representatives who live and work in that resident's area? I will work to recruit qualified and deserving area government representatives who care about their fellow residents and community.

Accountability: Area governors have a lot of freedom when it comes to spending the area's money. With this freedom comes the power to use it effectively or to misuse it. Just as the RHA president must be accountable to the campus as a whole, the area governors must be accountable to their residents. I would like to see all area governors submit a fall budget proposal before the closure of spring semester. If their programming has deviated extraordinarily, then that governor will have to meet with RHA executives in order to find out what happened.

Communication

Communication is the key to any successful organization. RHA is a large association and in order for it to reach its maximum potential, communication must be improved! As construction throughout our campus continues, area governments will need to be well informed about the construction developments affecting their residents.

Information: RHA needs to give the area governments, and through them the residence halls, the information necessary to develop and execute the best possible events in their area.

RHA and Residents: RHA must increase communication with the residents.

The average student should know what RHA is, what it does and why it's important. RHA can do this through RHA awareness events and increased publicity about the newly constructed RHA Web site.

Publicity: RHA has always struggled to inform students about events occurring in their area.

In order to better publicize the events occurring in the South Campus residence halls, I propose that RHA erect cubes, similar to the ones near the Student Union, near Chase Dining Hall.

When South Campus RHA is not using the cubes, other student organizations may use them to publicize their events.

Web Site: RHA needs to increase the amount of useful information on the RHA Web site. It also must update the site regularly so residents can check it to find out about events occurring in their area.

Internal Communication: RHA executives have too many ways to send e-mail to one person, so many times one member will receive the same e-mail multiple times because he or she is on multiple listservs. This communication process needs to be streamlined.

Relationships

Every student that lives on campus is a member of RHA; however, most students either do not take advantage of their membership or do not know how. In order to emphasize RHA and its benefits to the students, it is important for it to build relationships with students, organizations and the Department of University Housing resident assistants.

RHA must foster a strong relationship between RHA and the resident assistants. Working together, I believe that RAs and RHA maximize the effectiveness of both institutions, resulting in a better living environment for residents. I will also strongly encourage area governors to attend the resident assistant meetings in order to become more aware of the events affecting their area.

Handling Construction: In order to increase the organization's efficiency, RHA needs to form a close relationship between RHA executives and housing officials, RHA executives and area governments, and hopefully housing officials and area governments.

Student Organizations: In order to expand our program ideas and possibilities, RHA should build upon the existing relationships with student organizations, and develop new relationships with other campus groups.

Housekeeping: Residents need to live in a clean environment. However, if the housekeepers are not earning a wage that reflects the hard work they are doing, then sanitation in residence halls will suffer. In order to maintain a necessary standard of living, RHA needs to address this housekeeping issue.