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September was a busy month for Centenary’s Residence Hall Association
(RHA). RHA’s first goal was to hold elections for Centenary’s five Hall
Councils. All positions, including Presidents and Vice-Presidents,
needed to be filled. Centenary’s NCC worked tirelessly with the IT
department to get the online voting working as needed. She had set dates
for self-nomination and elections in coordination with the RHA
president’s wishes for the date of the first General Board meeting and
the RHA/Hall Council retreat. However, Hurricane Ike approached
Louisiana and Centenary closed down for three days, all of those days
being set aside for self-nomination. Even with the self-nomination
period extended and the voting days pushed back, RHA still managed to
stay in line with the schedule. However, RHA’s election woes were not
finished when the results came in. Several positions were not filled.
The positions of Publicity and Special Events Coordinators were not even
on the ballots initially and one Hall Council didn’t even have a
president! The EC and the newly elected Hall Council officers worked
together and used their connections to fill all of the Hall Councils.
Along with RHA’s first General Board meeting brought a new experience
for all involved. For the first time in several years, Centenary’s RHA
once again has judicial power over residence hall violations. The
judicial process is completely blind, meaning RHA members cannot know
the names of those involved or even the hall in which the incident took
place. RHA’s president and adviser had never tried these cases before
and, as the two people running the show, everyone was concerned. Also
causing uncertainty in the judicial proceedings was the Office of
Residence Life’s wishes that the punishment of fines be removed. RHA has
the job of not only trying their peers as guilty or not guilty, but also
converting the old fine-based sanction system to on-campus community
service hours. The order and process of these proceedings has been
played with since the first week and RHA is still feeling its way
around, but everyone is excited to have regained this power. RHA has also been utilizing its office more. In past years, the office
seemed more like a glorified closet rather than an efficient office. The
office has been cleaned and used for productive, RHA-related work.
Executive Council meetings are held there and the EC hold at least one
office hour per week each. Several EC members also wrote proposals
asking for various office supplies, like storage shelves, a new meeting
table and chairs, a computer chair and a printer. In light of the
summer’s residence hall renovations, RHA is seeking the opinions of the
students living in the renovated halls. Once the surveys, distributed
this month, are returned, RHA will notify the administration of
students’ ideas, since the same renovations are planned in all of the halls.
The month concluded with the RHA retreat/Hall Council training. In years
past, these were two separate events, but this year they were combined
in order to create a stronger sense of community between the Hall
Councils. All of the Hall Councils got to know each other and the EC and
it was stressed that RHA exists to help the Hall Councils. During
training, the RHA officers told their Hall Council counterparts to seek
their help whenever they should need it. The bonds created during the
retreat are sure to help RHA and the Hall Councils in their plans this year.
While September was rough at times for RHA, the organization persevered
and was made stronger. The trials experienced by RHA have set it up for
an amazing year. Word Count: 600
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