RHA Building Block

Of the Year 2019

Oakland

University

GLACURH Regional Business

Conference 2019

Hosted by

Michigan tech University

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Table of contents

Campus-level involvement … 3-5

Programs … 3-4

Community council changes &

involvement … 5

rHa structure & cHanges … 6-9

Constitutional edits … 6

e-board structure revision … 7-8

otHer Positive cHanges … 9

Regional involvement … 10

Involvement with nrhh … 11

Letters of support … 12

Works cited … 13

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Campus-Level

Involvement

PROGRAMS

• Midnight block party

Midnight Block Party is an

Oakland University annual

event in the fall. Up until this

year, it was run by the

Apartments community staff.

This year, RHA planned and

executed the event. The

attendance was more

successful than the previous

year, at an estimated 1000

people attending. Oakland

University has an on-campus

population of 3200, so this

was almost 1

3 of our

residential population!

The event was more centrally

located, spanning across Oakview Hall Lawn and the parking lot. It was

noticeable and easy to find, unlike the apartments which are a longer walk

away from the resident halls. In addition, the expenses were rather

inexpensive since we operated with local companies for the inflatables and

food that offered discounts to Oakland University.

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• Spooky Scary Skeledance

Zombie Walk is normally also an annual event, but the programming coordinators

experienced difficulties planning the event. Meadowbrook Hall, where the event is

normally located, changed their security policies and the event would not have been

able to take place on the grounds. Last year’s Zombie Walk was indoors due to

weather, and there was not as much attendance or positive feedback with the indoor

event.

The programming coordinators decided to change it up this year, and asked the

residents how they would like a dance instead, and many said that they would actually

prefer it instead of Zombie Walk. This event was full of Halloween fun – spooky

decorations, candy, great jams with a DJ from WXOU (campus radio station) a

costume contest along with prizes, and a raffle. It was very successful with about the

same attendance as last years Zombie Walk, but much more positive feedback.

• Home for the holidays

Home for the Holidays was a new event this year for RHA! Students were able to

partake in making gingerbread houses and homemade snow-globes. It took place

right before finals week, giving students a chance to de-stress.

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Community Councils

This year, we changed several things about our community councils, including their

name, the recruitment process for community council e-board members, and

branding.

• Changed name from Hall/House Council to Community Council

o More inclusive of our communities, since we also have a community

council for our on-campus apartment complexes.

o Created standardized name for all our community councils.

• Changed recruitment process from an election process to an application

process.

o Candidates selected based on interest, ability, and enthusiasm,

instead of popularity.

o Sent out marketing earlier so more people knew about applying.

• Created a universal community council logo for all community councils to use

for branding and marketing purposes.

Regional Leadership conference

We also changed our process for selecting delegates for the regional leadership

conference. The previous year, we took interested RHA e-board members to

conferences. This year, we had an application process open to all residents.

Application benefits:

• Gives the opportunity to anyone, not just RHA e-board members, to attend the

regional leadership conference, be involved in the Oakland University Housing

and GLACURH community, and gain leadership experiences.

• Great way to introduce residents to RHA and Housing, and possibly recruit

future RHA e-board candidates.

• The NCC and RHA e-board are able to meet interact with residents they don’t

normally work with.

• With a more diverse selection of delegates, it offers different perspectives,

Delegates can apply what they learn at the conference to different

communities they impact on-campus.

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RHA Structure

This year, one of our goals was to make our constitution and structure clear and efficient,

so RHAs after us would be able to understand how we operate. We changed both our

constitution and executive board structure extensively.

Our amendment process involves presenting in front of all attendees of business

meetings and amendments pass by majority vote of community council representatives

and RHA e-board members. This way, we are transparent with the changes we are

making and can make further changes based on residents’ feedback.

General Constitutional changes

• General changes to eliminate redundancy and

provide clarity

Simple grammatical changes, reorganizing, and deleting redundant statements.

• funding requests

We allow RA’s, community council and other housing staff to request money for

programs. This process was not outlined accurately in our constitution, so we

specified the process. Additionally, we added that our Treasurer send an email

confirming presentations, and funding confirmation emails.

• business meetings

Business meeting procedure was also not explained accurately, so we specified

that process.

• House council name changed to community

council

As mentioned previously, we changed the Hall/House Council name to

Community Council to better reflect our community as we have an apartment

complex on-campus.

• Deleted floor representative

Floor representative was a representative that was supposed to be sent from

each floor from each building. Quorum was defined by 2/3 attendance of all

representatives (floor, community council, and RHA e-board) Requiring that

many representatives to attend, we would have never been able to hit quorum.

Our RHA had not been using floor representatives in the way they were intended

for years. While it would be amazing to have that many people to attend our

business meetings, it was not realistic

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E-board changes

• Equal compensation o Our executive board members all receive stipends for working their

positions, however they were not all equally compensated. Next

academic year there will be equal pay for all positions. We planned

changes to the e-board for next academic year to make the workload

for each position as equal as possible.

• Added Leadership coordinator

o New position added this semester. This e-board member is in charge

of planning Community Council training and other leadership

development events. They act as a liaison for NRHH, Student

Congress, and other residential organizations.

o Enhanced relationship with Oakland University Student Congress,

(OUSC) our official student government for the entire campus.

o Facilitated discussions on issues voted on in OUSC that affect the

entire University, and gave the housing community a voice about what

to do about these issues. This is important for Oakland as we have a

mostly commuter population.

• E-board title changes

We changed some of our executive board titles so that they better reflect what

each position does, are more professional. We included “coordinator” in each

position to match other executive board titles for consistency.

o Co-programming chairs → Programming coordinators

o Secretary → Marketing Coordinator

o Treasurer → Financial Coordinator

• Programming coordinators

o Equipment Request responsibilities moved to the Vice President, since

the workload for Programming Coordinators is already intense.

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o The roles of each programming coordinator were specified so that

there is hopefully not an unequal workload between the two

programming chairs.

▪ Programming Coordinator: Large scale events

▪ Diversity & Inclusion Programming Coordinator: Small scale

events & diversity & inclusion events, helping with large scale

programming when needed.

o The Diversity & Inclusion Coordinator was eliminated and the

responsibilities were consolidated into the Diversity & Inclusion

Programming Coordinator.

▪ Ensures that Diversity & Inclusion remain important values

within our RHA and that programs for Diversity & Inclusion are

still organized.

▪ Planning “Hot Cookies Hot Topics” was also added to this

position, an event hosting discussions about important

diversity issues happening in the world.

• Philanthropy chair eliminated

o Our constitution has not been thoroughly looked over since we gained

our NRHH chapter. We did not want to impede or take attendance away

from NRHH’s events with overprogramming. We want to support and

become more involved with NRHH’s philanthropy events & initiatives,

so we added a section to our constitution that our RHA will support

NRHH’s philanthropy events.

• National Communications Coordinator

o Added that the RHA-CC should maintain communication with the

NRHH-CC

o Updated language to reflect more of the responsibilities of the position

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Other positive

RHA Changes

• Developed communication with

maintenance

We have a time during our RHA meetings for residents to report maintenance-

related problems. However, our communication with actual maintenance

officials was practically nonexistent. Our Vice President developed a

structured e-mail and in-person communication with our maintenance

department so that resident issues could be conveyed to them and solved.

• Attendance at RHA meetings

We introduced a new member of our RHA family to our general body meetings.

We have a grizzly bear named Shovah (an acronym containing each letter of

our resident halls)We give him to a building that has done something amazing

that week, and he gets to hang out by that building’s front desk for a week. This

has given something special to look forward to at RHA meetings to increase

our attendance.

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Regional Involvement

• Conferences attended

o GLACURH RBC 2017

o NACURH 2018

o GLACURH RLC 2018

o GLACURH RBC 2019

• Presented programs at nacurh

Three of our e-board members that attended NACURH presented programs.

Nia Brown & Jenna Johnston presented “Living Invisible.” This program was

based on a program that happened at Oakland that was extremely successful

and received a NACURH-winning OTM. It educated people on invisible

disabilities & illnesses, and placed people in the shoes of someone who has

one to better understand what it is like to live with one. They adapted it to a

smaller NACURH audience in a presentation and interactive-activity format.

Emme Molino & Nia Brown also presented “Can You Hear Me Now?” – a

program about active listening. This is important for effective communication

and recognizing issues on-capmus.

• RHA e-board members on GLACURH

Regional leadership conference

staff

Three of our e-board members were also directly involved with planning the

GLACURH Regional Leadership Conference. Nia Brown was one of the Spirit &

Awards Chairs, Emme Molino was the , and Jenna Johnston was one of the

Mass Gatherings & Entertainment Chairs.

Both Emme Molino and Jenna Johnston received Golden MOWIIs for their hard

work and dedication to the region.

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Involvement with NRHH

• Increased communication

RHA has been working on our communication with our NRHH chapter

this past year.

One change we have made to improve communication is our co-

advisor. From now on, one of the RHA advisors will advise both RHA

and NRHH. This way, the advisor is aware of the activities of both

organizations. The co-advisor can act as a secondary liason between

RHA and NRHH.

Additionally, we have made a constitutional change to the Leadership

Coordinator position to act as a liaison to NRHH so there is a e-board

also involved.

The NCC position also received a constitutional change to maintain

communication with the NRHH-CC so they can support each other with

their responsibilities.

• Writing otms

Our RHA is very involved in writing OTMs. Our executive board

members are required to write at least one OTM per semester.

However, several of our e-board members are also members of NRHH,

and write OTMs monthly if not more. They encourage other members to

write OTMs, and we give reminders and announcements at general

body meetings to write OTMs as well.

Several of our e-board members have received regional-winning

OTMs. Jenna Johnston received Executive Board Member of the Month

for September 2018, Samerah Saad received Advisor of the Month for

September 2018.

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Works cited

“Spooky Scary Skeletons.” Spreadshirtmedia,net

https://image.spreadshirtmedia.net/image-

server/v1/mp/designs/140451422,width=178,height=178,version=150827

5911/spooky-scary-skeletons.png

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