Oakland

University School of the Year

GLACURH Regional

Leadership Conference 2016

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Table of Contents

Residence Halls Association and Programs

Residence Halls and Dining

Golden Grizzlies Chapter of NRHH

History of Oakland & Oakland by the Numbers

GLACURH

NACURH

Letters of Support

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3

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5-7

11-13

8-10

14-16

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Oakland University was founded in 1957 by Matilda Dodge Wilson as Michigan State University—Oakland. Wilson donated $2,000,000 and her entire 1,443 acre es-tate for the university to be built upon. With her generous contributions, the first 3 buildings on campus, North Foundation Hall, South Foundation Hall, and the Oakland Center were constructed and the university was officially opened. In 1963, Michigan State University—Oakland became an independent university and graduated its first charter class. Since its charter class, Oakland University has gone on to graduate more than 100,000 students. In the short 59 years that the university has been op-erating, it has come to offer over 130 undergraduate programs and over 130 graduate and doctoral programs for its students.

1957 Founded by Matilda Dodge Wilson

1963 Became Oakland University

1998 Debut of the Golden Grizzly Mascot

300 Clubs and Organizations

130 Undergraduate Programs

136 Graduate and Doctoral Programs

16,935 Undergraduate Students

3,584 Graduate Students

120,000 Alumni

2,700 Residents

8th Safest Campus in Michigan

1 Historical Landmark on Campus 

NCAA Division 1 Athletics

.5-1.0 is the GPA increase by attending SI sessions

3.5 minimum GPA of those in the Honors College

500-600 people Disability Services see each semester

300 veterans, service members, or dependents

 

History of Oakland University

Oakland University by the Numbers

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Residence Halls Oakland University currently has 7 residence hall complexes. For

freshmen, there are:

For upperclassmen residents, there are:

Coming in 2018….

The newest residence hall, the Southern Student Housing Complex, had its ground-breaking ceremony in June of 2016 and is slated for completion in the fall of 2018. The complex will have 750 beds, meet LEED gold standards. This residence hall was designed for upperclassmen as it offers closer proximity to academic buildings than the existing residence halls. In addition to its 750 beds, the Southern Student Housing Complex will have its own cafeteria, classrooms, and meeting spaces.

Dining Options For Residents:

For residents, there is the Vandenberg Dining Center, renovated over the summer of 2016 residents can dine on pizza, specialty items, ice cream, and even a Mongolian grill station. There is also a convenience store, Tilley’s, in Oak View Hall, where residents can purchase anything from toothpaste to pizza.

In some of the academic buildings, students can find:

Starbucks

Einstein’s Bagels

In the Oakland Center, students can pick from:

Au Bon Pain Café and Bakery

Panda Express

Chick-Fil-A

Create

Moe’s Grill

Subway

The Bear Cave

Van Wagoner House Hill House Hamlin Hall

Ann V. Nicholson Apartments

Fitzgerald

George T. Matthew Apartment Complex

Oak View Hall Vandenberg Hall

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Golden Grizzly Chapter of NRHH Membership

Despite being relatively new, the Golden Grizzly Chapter of NRHH at Oakland University is flourishing. The organi-zation is currently at max member capacity of 27 individuals and is continually searching for new members and putting on recruitment efforts. In September NRHH tabled outside the campus cafeteria and was able to fill an entire front and back page of residents interested in joining NRHH.

Recognition

Some chapter goals for the last year were focused on improving in terms of recognition, and the chapter was ex-tremely successful in this regard. In fact since GLACURH 2015 the chapter submitted 154 OTMs. The OTMs sub-mitted from the chapter won not only at the regional level but also at the national level! Every NRHH member is required to submit one OTM a month, the Residents Assistants are required to submit once a semester, but there are so many people to be recognized that the chapter members often submit more than their required OTM. In addition to the chapter’s dedication to keep this momentum going in terms of OTMs and recognition, the chapter has created some new goals for itself, as well. This time around, NRHH expanding the focus of its attention to fully include philanthropy and programming.

Programming and Philanthropy

NRHH’s program for the month of September involved tabling outside of the Vandenberg Hall cafeteria in order to increase awareness and name recognition for the chapter and its upcoming programs. There is a goal of putting on at least 1 program every month, and after the huge success of the September tabling, the chapter is extremely confident moving further into the semester. NRHH has substantial plans for the remaining fall semester programs, with one of those being a philanthropy-focused month-long donation program. 

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Residence Halls Association

President: Shayne Hearns

Vice President: Skylar Tolfree

Executive Secretary: Amy Weed

Treasurer: James Fricke

Inclusion Coordinator: Vivi Rubles

Co-Programming Chair: Jess Quandt

Co-Programming Chair: Ben Walthers

NCC: Allen Dahlka

About RHA:

Oakland University’s Residence Halls Association (RHA) is composed of a variety of elements to make sure that the student voice is heard in University Housing. RHA serves the residential student body as a mixture of a student congress and programming body. RHA provides a variety of programs which provide a fun and safe environment while also educating residents on important issues. The RHA executive board oversees all meetings and programs.

General Body Meetings:

At RHA’s general body meetings, residents are welcome to come and receive updates from campus partners and learn about items such as upcoming programs, issues on campus, and changes that are being implemented.

Business Meetings:

In addition to the general body meetings, RHA also hosts business meetings. These meetings follow the general body meetings after a brief intermission where residents can socialize with each other and grab a quick snack provided by RHA. At the business meetings, elected hall representatives vote to fund programs for the residence halls and approve or discard legislation. There is also a point in the business meetings where the representatives can express concerns from their buildings.

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RHA Programs Accomplished November 2015 – November 2016

RHA hosted over 42 programs around the issues of stress, inclusion, mental health, and more

Funded an additional 25 programs put on by Resident Assistants, Academic Peer Mentors, and others

RHA chooses a philanthropic organization every year to be a recipient of funds raised through a variety of events and service activities.

RHA’s Philanthropic Efforts

Academic Year 2015-2016

RHA partnered with Leader Dogs for the Blind, an organization that trains dogs for people with disabilities. RHA raised $2,236.46 through a variety of commu-nity service events and fundraisers (pictured right).

Academic Year 2016-2017

This year, RHA is partnering with Humble Designs, an organization that assists families as they transition out of homelessness.

Collected over 300 school supplies during month-long extra supply drive.

Raised over $150 from ongoing recyclable drive.

Campus Volunteering

Housing Day of Service

Housing partnered with 7 community or-ganizations such as Habitat for Humanity to provide volunteer efforts from the 130 Resident Assistants, Academic Peer Men-tors, and RHA Executive Board.

Center for Student Activities

80 community partners

4 alternative spring break options

4,100 students sought volunteer opportunities in 2016

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Other Housing Initiatives

Inclusivity In the fall of 2016, University Housing employees were given the option to have their preferred pronouns included in their name tags. Additionally this year, the Oakland University Student Congress implemented a preferred-name policy for transgender and gender nonconforming students that allows them to change their given name in Mooodle (Oakland’s electronic educational platform). Both of these changes fostered a sense of safety and inclusion amongst the student population.

Challenging Times, Challenging Issues Mental Health

In the first week of April 2016 RHA hosted its first Mental Health Awareness Week. One program, called the “Room of Recognition”, was created in partnership with the OU Counsel-ing Center. The “room” (pictured right) boxed in four pillars with streamers and when the students entered, there were sta-tistics and facts about mental health. Students then anony-mously posted their stories about mental health for others to see. The objective was to show the prevalence of mental health issues at OU, express their feelings, and gain resources that were present in the “room”. By the end of the program over 130 students had participated in writing on the walls.  

Hot Cookies, Hot Topics "Hot Cookies-Hot Topics" is a new series of programs started in the fall of 2016 that sponsored by OU Housing. These events allow residents to come to-gether and have discussions on current events that are happening within socie-ty. #BlackLivesMatter was the topic of the first program. Over 70 students attended where they shared their stories, emotions, and thoughts on the topic. The next topic will be on the subject of “locker room talk”.

Academic Peer Mentors (APMs) There are 24 live in tutors certified tutors, that put on “Tutor Nights” Monday through Thursday. At Tutor Nights, residents are invited to come sit and do homework, while they are doing their work, the APMs are there to answer any questions that stu-dents might have. The APMs are also available to residents even when they are not at tutor nights seeing as they live in the residence halls. In the 2015-2016 academic year over 1,400 students utilized programs offered by the APMs with over 2,500 students attending the tutor nights.

Bear Bus Another great service that Housing offers to its students is the Bear Bus to allow both residents and commuters to get around campus and the local area if they don’t have a license and/or a car on campus. Another great thing is that the Bear Bus runs 7 days a week; has 4 busses and 1 shuttle van; and 8 routes that operate regularly.

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GLACURH Conference Involvement

At GLACURH 2015, we had 5 student lead presentations from within our delegation. Oak-land University’s delegation presented great programs relating to student issues. The ses-sions presented at GLACURH 2015 were:

The Things I Do For Love—A notable program, put on by the then-RHA president and RHA executive secretary, discussed love languages and how to properly appreciate fellow staff members as illustrated by a childhood favorite cartoon character, Courage Cowardly Dog.

Cut. It. Out. –A program about overcoming obstacles in ones life all based around the teachings of Joey from Full House.

Diversity Cupcakes— (Pictured above) This program explained the various identi-ties a student could have using cupcakes and sprinkles.

Fundraising and Philanthropy –A program all about how organizations can use resources to raise money for local organizations.

Hot Topics—This program involved students facing difficult current topics in the world and debating them in a safe space.

Oakland University has attended GLACURH last year!

At GLACURH 2015, Oakland University won Program of the Year for its program Midnight Block Party.

Midnight Block Party is a yearly program hosted by all of the Resident Assistants living in the Ann V.

Nicholson apartment complex outside of their 4000’s building. The program is a large dance party, com-

plete with lots of food, inflatables, and giveaways, to kick off the start of the academic year. Most nota-bly, this is the first award that Oakland University

had ever won at a conference.

GLACURH Program of the Year

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No Frills Involvement Beyond consistently attending the last 4 No Frills conferences, we also sent 2 NCC’s and 2 NCC’s in training to No Frills 2015 at Ball State University where Oakland

was an active participant in boardroom proceedings.

Lauren McKillop

The current president for the Golden Grizzly Chapter of NRHH, sits on the GLACURH OTM selection committee.

Regional Representation

Timothy Nickels

At No Frills 2016, Oakland University’s conduct graduate assistant, Timothy Nickels, bid to be the Assistant Director for NRHH and won! Tim bid for the position using a maritime-themed bid that perfectly encapsulated his personality and high-lighted his numerous qualifications for the posi-tion. Oakland University is very proud of Tim and

is glad to have him call it home.

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Regional Communication The current NCC for Oakland University communicated with a representative of East-ern Michigan University’s housing about the success of passing out preferred pronoun buttons during move-in week at Eastern in hopes of implementing a similar cause at Oakland. At a later date, both parties also communicated about a transgender aware-

ness inclusion program.

Since GLACURH 2015, Oakland has won 9 regional OTMs recognizing a wide range of astounding undergraduate, graduate, and professional level staff.

Regional OTM Winners

 

Jackie Duc

January 2016 — Advisor

Gaberiel Dumbrille February 2016 — Residence

Life Professional Staff April 2016— Advisor

Jenna Nielson

October 2015 —Executive Board Member

Chloe Zeabari

December 2015 —Executive Board Member

Sandra Alef

February 2016 — Advisor

Randy Jefferson

December 2015 — Student

Sean Foe

February 2016 — Execu-tive Board Member

Timothy Nickels

March 2016 — Advisor

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NACURH Conferences This year Oakland University was able to bring 12 students to NACURH hosted at the University of Delaware. Through bringing a large delega-tion many new students were exposed to a wide variety of student leaders and learn about how residence hall organizations across the country operate. Everyone came back dead asleep from all the excite-ment, but still full of new knowledge and ready to share the wealth!

NACURH Affiliation  

 

Oakland University has always promptly paid its national membership dues for both its Residence Halls Association and National Residence Halls Honor-ary chapters. In addition to never being delinquent with its dues, Oakland

University bids for regional awards and submits regional file indexes. 

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NACURH Display of the Year

At NACURH 2016, Oakland University won best large-school display in the nation!

The display, a superhero costume lab, was inspired by the theme of the conference and the many different faces of leadership. Each member of the delegation, along with the advisors, designed their a patch indicative of their personality to be featured on the display, next to a superhero costume in progress. Other elements included various

items that would be found at a seamstresses work station.

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Oakland University’s graduate assis-tant for programming and RHA co-

advisor, was the recipient of a NACURH-level OTM. The OTM was written by a previous RHA vice-

president and was the first NACURH-level OTM that the University had

received as well. In the OTM, Michelle’s amazing strength, resili-ence, and work ethic were brought

to light for all to see.

Oakland’s First NACURH OTM Michelle Cecil—December 2015 Advisor of the Month

NACURH Board Room

RHA and NRHH has also sent representatives to the national board room.

The boardroom representatives for NACURH 2016 were NCC Proxy Skylar Tolfree and NRHH NCC Proxy Jessica Quandt

(pictured right). The proxies were able to experience a brief taste of what a full-fledged NCC does and gain a new apprecia-tion for them in addition to gaining invaluable experience with

parliamentary procedure.

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To GLACURH Regional Board of Directors,

My name is Shayne Hearns, and I serve as the current president of the Residence Halls Association at Oakland University. I have lived on this campus going on six years, and I believe it has given me a unique perspective, as I have been here through various changes, and have seen the various strides that this institution has taken to offer the best that it can to its students. In plain terms, I believe that Oakland University deserves School of the Year because even though on-campus students only account for 25% of its population it strives to provide a community that is as inclusive and supportive as possible.

There are approximately 2,700 students living on campus. These students are spread across 8 residence halls. Alt-hough we are primarily a commuter school, there is continuously growing demand for on campus living spaces. Due to this, in 2014, we opened our newest hall, Oak View, which added 500 beds. This helped satiate the de-mand for about a year and a half, however, we have now run out of space in that building as well. Because of this, this past June, we broke the ground on the newest facility to come. It will add 750 beds for upperclassmen and open a whole new area for classrooms, dining, and meeting spaces.

We have house council and RHA. Where an RA would do programming for their floor, House council will throw programs for their entire building. On crowd favorite is Hallow Halls. Every year, the house council for Hamlin, one of our freshman halls, put on a contest. Each floor tries to make the scariest hallway for residents who go through them. At the end, the scariest hall is voted on and whichever floor wins, gets a prize. This past year the building chose to have a pizza party with the funds won. The biggest programming planning board is our Resi-dence Hall Association. With that, we put on large scale programs such as Siblings weekend, where residents can bring their siblings to enjoy programs like the Sibling Olympics and Magicians. We also have a philanthropy chair who leads residents in an effort to raise money/items for a specific charity for the year. This year, we picked Humble Design.

Another position that has been renamed this past year the RHA Inclusion coordinator. They put on programs cen-tered on creating awareness and a safe space to talk about social issues. Last year the coordinator put on a pro-gram called “Homeless Awareness” where they showed a documentary on it, after which, using cardboard recy-cled from people moving in, participants built a shelter to sleep outside in for the night. They also did “LGBT week” where various topics of the LGBTQIA spectrum were discussed.

These are just a few gears that make up the machine that Oakland University housing. These and other cogs, and plain good old fashion elbow grease and love that the professional staff put into it work together to create a huge community of all different races, social backgrounds, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and majors can live cohe-sively.

Shayne Hearns 

President, Residence Halls Association Oakland University Housing snhearns@oakland.edu (313) 445-6965 

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October 13, 2016

GLACURH Regional Board of Directors, It is with great enthusiasm that I submit this letter of support for Oakland University as they bid for the School of the Year Award. I have had the pleasure of working professionally on Oakland’s campus since 2014, and previous-ly served two years as the advisor for RHA. Oakland University is truly an incredible institution whose student en-gagement and growth on the campus, regional, and NACURH levels is unparalleled. I believe you will see that they are a worthy recipient of the prestigious School of the Year Award. Oakland University’s RHA has a resounding impact on the student population and the surrounding communities. In the time since the last GLACURH, Oakland University’s RHA has created 57 individual programs on campus and sponsored an additional 36 – they truly are a programming force on campus. In addition, they provide a unique venue for student voice and advocacy at their meetings and through ongoing committee work. In the local community, RHA collaborated with a local organization, Leader Dogs for the Blind, and provided multiple ave-nues for education, as well as raising $2,236.46 for the organization. This year, the group is partnering with Hum-ble Design, an organization that assists those who have experienced homelessness transition smoothly into life in a new home – for which they have already donated 300 school supplies so far this year. On a regional level, Oakland University has been especially impactful. During the last regional conference, the Oakland University delegation presented 5 programs, in addition to several ART sessions. Further, the organiza-tion bid for Program of the Year and were honored to receive the award. At the NACURH level, Oakland’s RHA attended the latest conference and were awarded the Large School Display. In the last year, Oakland University’s NRHH chapter submitted 154 OTMs, and have won 9 regional and 1 NACURH level awards. I truly think the numbers speak for themselves in showing a commitment to GLACURH, NACURH, and student leadership! Thank you for your consideration of Oakland University as the School of the Year. I wholeheartedly believe in the accomplishments of Oakland’s student leaders and hope you can see the impact they have created and will contin-ue to create in the future. Peace, Love, Polar Bears! Travis Gibler Residence Director, Vandenberg Hall gibler@oakland.edu

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10/12/2016 

Dear GLACURH,  

I cannot tell you how excited I am that you are submi ng a bid for school of the year.  I wish to submit a le er of recommenda on in support of your bid. 

Oakland University is not the biggest, most funded, nor academically elite university in the region.  But I would have no second thoughts about nomina ng OU for the university with the most passion and heart.  I believe that passion comes from a university that is rooted in a student‐centered approach to par cipa on, collabora on and success. 

Oakland University Housing builds policies and programs around student input and need.  Our Academic Peer Mentor program cer fies and employs undergraduate students to live and serve our residents alongside of our Resident Assistants, but in a tutoring/support role.  Our tutor nights are heavily trafficked four nights a week in mul ple loca ons on campus.  The residen al sustainability and recycling effort in all of our resi‐dence halls is staffed by student volunteers who faithfully bring all of our recycling to a centralized pick‐up loca on, simply because they are passionate.  Our university preferred name policy was ini ated and suc‐cessfully implemented as a result of student input.  Our inclusive student housing policy was also designed through direct input from our residen al student leaders.  Our most recent residence hall (500 beds) as well as one currently under construc on (750 beds & dining) was designed primarily from on‐going student design sessions during the very founda on of each project.  Even our dining program is regularly adjusted by direct student input. 

What we find as a result of these collabora ve efforts are student leaders who embody a level of confidence, professionalism and success that directly grows as a result of viewing the evidence of their own impact.  This is why Oakland University has achieved nine regional OTMs as well as a NACURH winner during this past year.  This is why we heavily par cipate with na onal and regional delega ons to conferences.  This is why we won best large school display two years in a row as well as regional GLACURH program of the year. 

I am very proud of these achievements and many more.  But I am most proud of the caring, compassionate on campus community they help to build.  Oakland University Housing has become a place where people are valued, cared for, respected, celebrated and most importantly loved.  These students have built a home here at OU, in every sense the word could mean. 

 

Thank you for your considera on, 

 

Jim Zentmeyer 

Director, University Housing 

Oakland University 

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