RHA wants students to beam at new event

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator might have used lasers as a different kind of incentive, but the Residence Hall Association’s laser tag event tonight is meant to make students say, “I’ll be back.”

The Residence Hall Association is putting on a laster tag event for on-campus students to attend.

The association is a student organization that is meant to unify various student communities.

Junior Susan Gleaves, the governor of Parker Community, said the event is open to all students but is an incentive for on-campus students to stay.

“From an RHA standpoint, we want people to live and stay on campus during their undergrad as they can, and events like these kind of draw them in,” Gleaves said.

“By staying on campus, they have access to events like these.”

According to U.S. News and World Report, only 53 percent of UNC students lived in college-owned, operated or affiliated housing in 2013. UNC students who have earned fewer than 30 credit hours and are enrolled in 12 or more hours at UNC are required to live on campus.

Sophomore Karen Cheng, internal affairs officer of RHA, said once the event was posted on Facebook, the sign-up sheet was closed within two days. More than 300 people said they will attend the event on Facebook.

Each game of laser tag will be 10 minutes long, and groups of eight are allowed per team.

Cheng said she enjoys organizing events because it is a fun way for students who live on campus to meet.

“We really just want to make on-campus living a great experience and offer opportunities for students to meet each other,” Cheng said.

“I’m excited about meeting people and having fun with friends and just enjoying the event in general,” said junior Anika Hannan, resident advisor at Teague Residence Hall.

Hannan said she is excited to go to the event with her friends because of how much the event has been promoted through social media, along with the incentive of free T-shirts.

“They did a good job of attracting people to their event,” Hannan said.

Gleaves said her favorite event that she’s attended was the RHA Silent Disco and hopes to see it return in the fall.

She said she also looks forward to RHA’s future events.

“I think it’s awesome how RHA is trying to have new and exiting events for residents to have,” Gleaves said.

Cheng said RHA’s commitment to student residents is why she enjoys her job.

“The reason why I really like RHA is because we’re in the position to do really cool events that haven’t been done before,” Cheng said. “I just really love the opportunity of being able to have a lot of creative freedom to put on events like this.”

“We just want to continue the trend of hosting fun and interesting events.”

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