theResident

A Monthly Publication of the Residence Hall Association at The University of Georgia

February 2013 Volume V, Issue IVinside this issue

Designed and Compiled by Cory Shaw, Director of Communications

rha.uga.edu UGARHA @UGA_RHA@

The Sustain My Heart promotional flyer

Valentine’s Day is quick-ly approaching and RHA wants to be your valentine! No matter what your plans are, you should come out to RHA’s Sustain My Heart semi-formal dance the night before Valentine’s Day on

February 13! Unlike many of our other programs exclusive to on-campus residents, all students are welcome, so we hope you can all come. Bring your friends, bring your date, and dance the night away! As always, this pro-

gram is totally free and will fea-ture food, sustainable bags, and other promotional items. Also a DJ will be there playing all your favorite songs, and there will be a photo booth to capture all your fun! The dance is in Memorial Hall

Ballroom from 7-9 p.m. RSVP on our Facebook event page here. I hope you can all come out, and I can’t wait to see you there!

by amber painter

Residents, are you look-ing for a fun and exciting way to get involved in an RHA commit-tee? Each year, RHA holds Diver-sity Awareness Week at Georgia (D.A.W.G Days). During this week, RHA, hall councils, and RAs host programs to promote diversity awareness among students. This year, RHA’s main program “Break-ing Boundaries: I am more than...” is being planned by the D.A.W.G Days Committee. If you would like to take part in the planning of

by katie ackley

D.A.W.G Daysthis event, which will take place in late March, please email either myself (kackley@uga.edu) or Am-ber Painter (amberpai@uga.edu) for meeting times. Help is need-ed in all areas! Don’t miss this chance to work with students and professional staff members from across campus to help meet Uni-versity Housing’s diversity initia-tives.

Diversity Awareness Week at UGA upcoming

I AM MORE THAN ___________

A STUDENTMY MAJOR

MY SEXUAL ORIENTATION

MY GPA

AN ATHLETEMY PAST

Mini Exec N Rec Page 2

GRHO Conference Page 3

Important Dates Page 5

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Dr. Bill McDonald giving the keynote speech

Each semester RHA hosts a training session, Exec ‘N Rec in the Fall and Mini Exec ‘N Rec in the Spring, for the 12 Hall Coun-cils located throughout campus. During this mini conference, Hall Council members are asked to prepare spirit items and spirit wear, to relate to a theme while representing the uniqueness of their community. Attendees are also given the opportunity to present programs for their fel-low council members that teach a variety of lessons, from leader-ship skills to etiquette class. This year the councils were given the theme, “RHA Loves the ‘90s” and they really ran with it! Each hall decided to approach it differently so we saw council dress vary from Saved by the Bell to Legends of the Hidden Temple, or the all time favorite, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The spirit and enthusiasm shown by the group as a whole was astronomi-

cal. Cheers thundered from the Tate Grand Hall as the awards were announced at the end of the day. In the end, Creswell took home Best Banner, CHB housed the Most Spirited Male Delegate, with the Most Spirited Female Delegate at Morris, and for the coveted Most Spirited Hall Coun-cil, Creswell was called again! Overall, the day was a success; councils were able to bond with themselves and other councils and were also given the chance to meet with RHA Executive Board members who correlate to their positions to ask any ques-tions needed. We can only hope this successful weekend leads to a successful semester! With that in mind, be on the lookout for pro-grams within your halls or com-munities because your councils are busy as work planning pro-grams you don’t want to miss!

by mallory whitfield

RHA is proud to once again continue with our long standing tradition of Supporting the Arts both on the UGA campus and in the Athens community. Feb-ruary is a special month in that one of the most popular student hosted cultural events will be tak-ing place. The University of Geor-gia Indian Cultural Exchange will be hosting India Night 2013, of which RHA has allocated money to help make happen. India Night is an annual cultural awareness program by showcasing a myriad of musical acts, comedic skits, and dance performances by tal-ented students from all over the Southeast United States. This year’s India Night will take place on Saturday, February 23 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Classic Cen-ter, located just a short walk from campus in downtown Athens. It is with great pleasure

that we would like to extend the offer to attend this program by giving away free tickets (which normally cost up to $16) to the first 15 residents to email rha@uga.edu with their name, Hall, and Room Number, along with the answer to the following trivia question: What is the India Night 2013 theme? Hint: It translates to “A Culture Reignited.” You can find the answer on this page, by watching their stunning promo-tional video here, or on their of-ficial Facebook page here. We hope to hear from you soon, winners will be con-tacted via email, and as always, RHA continues to support culture through the arts.

by james han

Supporting the ArtsRead on to learn how to win free tickets to In-

dia Night 2013 later this month

rha.uga.edu UGARHA @UGA_RHA@

3

GRHO 2013 Conference a Great SuccessDelegates traveled to Georgia Southern to represent UGA

Members of the delegation showing off their RHA spirit

Earlier this semester RHA had the opportunity to attend the annual Georgia Residence Hall Organization (GRHO) confer-ence, this year hosted by Georgia Southern University. The theme was “GRHO Gone Wild: The Circle of Residence Life,” which accentuated the importance of cooperation in a residence hall atmosphere. Several members

of both the RHA Executive Board and the General Body were cho-sen as delegates. They attended various programs which dealt with such topics as leadership development, communication skills, and diversity awareness. RHA was glad to bring some recognition back to our university in the form of various awards. We had two of the top

five programs, hosted by Krys-tal Gongora, Sophie Polakowski and Abigail Ellis. Krystal was also elected as the state’s Emerging Student Leader of the Year. Ad-ditionally, UGA was honored to have Ben Bradshaw elected to serve as next year’s GRHO Direc-

tor. We were also extremely proud to have UGA voted to host next year’s GRHO conference: GRHO Loves the ‘90s!

by rc goslee

Message From the President

Mallory Whitfield discusses what’s on tap for her final semester as RHA President

Hey RHA! I hope your se-mester has gotten off to a fan-tastic start after the holiday sea-son! The RHA Executive Board has been very busy this semes-ter trying to make sure we’re planning the programs you guys want to see, from a semi-formal dance to a diversity celebration. This means, if you aren’t already following us on Twitter and Face-book, you should get on it! Why would you want to miss out on free giveaways and unique op-portunities? Answer: You wouldn’t! Similar to last semester, the RHA Executive Board will be holding office hours various times throughout the week. If you ever have any concerns or sugges-tions on how we can better serve the residents, feel free to stop by the RHA office. Our schedule

of office hours is posted on the RHA website under “About Us,” the window of the office door in Creswell Hall, and on Page 5 of this issue! As I begin to wrap up my last semester as RHA President, I urge you to take advantage of the great opportunities we have to offer throughout the campus, from a higher time commitment like any one of the many com-mittees to zero commitment op-portunities like our monthly pro-grams. Either way, we’ve got an option for you! As always, let me know if there’s anything I can help you with. I’m here for you guys!

by mallory whitfield

rha.uga.edu UGARHA @UGA_RHA@

4

NRHH RecruitmentBe the voice of those living on campus

RHS ProducingSpring 2013 initiatives underway

Winter break was a great opportunity to relax and unwind for all students, and the students who work with RHS were no dif-ferent. We came back recharged and rejuvenated and ready to tackle a new semester. This se-mester things are different than any semester in the past two years because we have timelines associated with uploading videos to the channel, thanks to the fact that Housing-12 is back up and running at full speed. This required us to hit the ground running with our talk show, Classic City Bark. Our first 2013 episode of this successful, pan-el-style talk show was filmed and edited before our interest meet-ing on January 31. On the other side of RHS’s productions, I wrote and Megan directed a roll call video to rep-resent the University of Georgia RHA at the Georgia Residence Hall Organization conference: “GRHO Gone Wild: The Circle of Rez-life.” Despite not winning Best Roll Call, the video was pop-ular at the conference. It was a video we are proud of and were glad to produce for RHA, and you can view it here. We’ve also started a brand-new committee within RHA called the “Housing-12 Program-ming Committee.” This commit-tee is based on the old policies and procedures for Housing-12, which had established an Ad-visory Board composed of the President of GTV, the Housing 12

Station Director, and a group of Student Reps that would uphold the policies of the channel by re-viewing content for the channel, conducting audience surveys and setting goals for the future of the channel. This committee is an ex-citing and easy way to get in-volved in RHS if you are techni-cally challenged, and it is a fun way to get to know the people behind the cameras. If you are in-terested in joining the committee, please send an email to me at robbo719@uga.edu. Because of how new this committee is, if you are a new RHA representative in need of joining a committee, this is an excellent choice because you wouldn’t be as behind the curve as you might be in some other committees. It will meet on Fridays at 4 p.m. For news on when the next meeting will be, please ask me! So, what’s coming up next for Residence Hall Studios? Rob-ert Miller has written and pitched a funny video project for RHS entitled “Minor Differences.” It’s bound to be a great time and we’ll be working on it Thursday, February 7 at 6:30 p.m. starting in the RHS office. And if you are interested in helping out with Classic City Bark, feel free to come by on Mondays at 6 p.m.

by rob clement

A screenshot of the GRHO roll call video

For the past 15 years, The Geor-gia Alpha Chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) has been promoting recogni-tion, leadership, and service at the University of Georgia and in the Athens community. We are a very active chapter and we host service events, social programs for members, and many other unique opportunities that benefit our members, the university as a whole, and the local Athens Area. Our organization is built around the four pillars of Scho-lastics, Recognition, Service, and Leadership. As the leading hon-orary dedicated to recognizing the top 1 percent of on-campus Leaders, NRHH is committed to recognizing those with these qualities. In order to apply, we re-quire that applicants have lived on-campus for at least one se-

mester, plan on living on-campus the following year, have at least a 3.0 GPA, and have made a sig-nificant, positive contribution to their community. If you are interested in joining, please feel free to at-tend any of our events (you can find this information on our web-site, which is kept up to date with chapter happenings). Feel free to contact our Executive Direc-tor, Ben Bradshaw (bradshaw@uga.edu), or myself (bradburz@uga.edu), with any questions. As it stands now, our online applica-tion will open on Monday, Febru-ary 24 and close on Friday March 8. You can find our application on our website (nrhh.uga.edu), un-der the “Apply” tab.

by brad burzumato

rha.uga.edu UGARHA @UGA_RHA@

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Save These DatesSustain My Heart

2/13

RHA Elections 3/2

Breaking Boundaries 3/25

D.A.W.G Days3/25 - 3/30

No Frills Conference3/22 - 3/24

Rez Fest Week 4/12 - 4/18

Each year one university has the opportunity to host the GRHO (Georgia Residence Hall Organization) state conference. In order to decide where the next year’s conference will be held, schools from all over the state create bids. These long presen-tations are voted upon by rep-resentatives from each school affiliated with the organization. After the votes are tallied up, the winner is announced and the

year-long process of planning begins. This year UGA RHA bid to host GRHO, and thanks to the massive amount of support we received from the Housing de-partment along with residents and our advisors, we were suc-cessful in our endeavor. I am proud to announce that GRHO 2014, “GRHO’in Up ‘90s” will be hosted at the beautiful University of Georgia. This means that ap-

proximately 150 residents from Universities all over the state will be offered the opportunity of seeing our wonderful campus while furthering themselves as young student leaders. This con-ference, which will take place in February of next year, will require a great amount of volunteers! (Shameless plug!) So if helping to shape the experience of dozens of student leaders from across the land sounds like a great

weekend to you, then stay tuned into RHA! I would like to close by saying that I am so proud to go to a university that not only al-lows, but pushes students to get involved above and beyond the campus level. The support and enthusiasm we have received makes it great to be a Georgia Bulldog!

GRHO 2014 Will Be Hosted at UGAThis annual housing conference will put University Housing in the spotlight next February

by kaitlyn branson

Spring 2013 Office HoursNeed to see us? Come by during these times.

rha.uga.edu UGARHA @UGA_RHA@

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 Tours from

6pm-8pm at Reed Hall

Residence Hall Association Office Hours - Spring 2013

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

9:00 am - 9:30 am

9:30 am - 10:00 am

10:00 am - 10:30 am

10:30 am - 11:00 am James

11:00 am- 11:30 am James

11:30 am - Noon Mallory James Mallory

Noon - 12:30 pm Mallory James/RC (12:15) Mallory RC (12:15)

12:30 pm - 1:00 pm Mallory James/RC/Katie (12:45) Mallory RC/Katie (12:45)

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm James/RC/Katie James/RC/Katie

1:30 pm - 2:00 pm RC (1:45)/Katie (1:45) RC (1:45)/Katie (1:45)

2:00 pm - 2:30 pm Ben Rob/Kayla/Kaitlyn Ben

2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Ben Rob/Kayla/Kaitlyn Ben

3:00 pm - 3:30 pm Ben Rob/Kayla/Kaitlyn Ben

3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Cory Rob/Kayla/Kaitlyn Cory

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm Katie Cory Rob/Kayla/Kaitlyn Cory

4:30 pm - 5:00 pm Katie Cory Rob/Kayla/Kaitlyn Cory

**Amber Painter - Sunday (5:00pm-8:00pm)