With a uniquely strong Greek Life presence on the UI campus, the Residence Hall Association, and their role in shaping life on campus, can often be overlooked.
To learn more about how RHA influences the experience of student’s living within UI’s residence halls, and how the organization works to address the needs of non-Greek students, I spoke with RHA President Hayley Bowring and Director of Communications Claire Westby. The first thing the two sought to impart was that RHA is distant from UI’s Housing and Residence Life.
“We’re not affiliated with housing any more than any other student organization is,” Westby said. “What we do is we’re just mainly student government…(and) it’s not just a thing on our campus, we go to conferences and participate in regional and national events.”
Westby explained this entails working with other organizations such as the National Residence Hall Honorary to advocate for the interests of residence hall students. The Vandal NRHH chapter emphasizes recognizing those that leave the biggest impact on students’ living experience.
“One of the biggest ways that I advocate for students is with recognition,” Westby said. “A big part of my job is writing presentations about why students on our campus should win awards through the RHA organization.”
Bowring explained that RHA also works closely with both ASUI and UI’s Housing and Residence Life to further advocate for residence hall needs.
“I have monthly meetings with Tanner (McClain), the ASUI President, discussing ways for ASUI and RHA to work together, trying to find ways for RHA to have more of a voice on campus,” Bowring said. “We communicate with upper housing as well.”
Bowring said within communication with housing administration, RHA usually relays the concerns of residents and making suggestions on changes in the dorms.
“We don’t control a lot of the decisions that housing makes, but there might be times they ask us for opinions,” Bowring said.
Westby explained that RHA’s structure was not too dissimilar from that of the senate in ASUI. Each residence hall has a community assembly that provides general assembly representatives to speak on the respective hall’s developments or concerns before the RHA executive body.
Westby added that community representative and executive positions are decided through elections at the start of each school year, with Theophilus Tower and Wallace receiving a representative for each floor and the LLCs receiving representatives for each building.
“The actual community assemblies themselves will deal with stuff specific to their residence hall,” Westby said. “For example, the (Theophilus) Tower will plan events, and it’ll talk about it, it’ll spend the budget and make improvements specifically for Tower, whereas general assembly is more focused on all residence hall things.”
Bowring explained that the funds for each residence hall is distinct from the university’s housing budget. Housing uses funds to maintain utilities and upgrade facilities. While housing covers the cost of furniture, RHA would be tasked with allocating funds for a damaged ping-pong table.
Though RHA’s control over larger budgetary allocations is limited, work is being done to exert their influences in other ways on campus. Westby said that one of RHA’s present goals is to improve residents’ involvement in student organizations.
“We really want to work on, especially going into next academic year, getting more residents involved in ASUI,” Westby said. “At least the majority of the senators are Greek-affiliated, so RHA really wants the residence hall students to have representation in ASUI.”
While work will be done to further integrate RHA with other organizations, Bowring said there is a continued need to simply inform students on the distinction between RHA and UI Housing.
“We do work with Housing, but we don’t control what the Resident Assistants do, we don’t do anything with policy or conduct,” Bowring said. “We’re a completely separate organization that’s focused on improving the experience in the residence halls and providing leadership opportunities for those who want (them).”
Royce McCandless can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @roycem_news