2016 NACURH Building Block RHA of the Year

NACURH

Block RHA of the year University of Nebraska at Omaha MACURH NACURH 2016 at the University of Delaware

Table of Contents Introduction .................................................. 2 RHA Structure .............................................. 3

Executive Board ........................................... 4 Budget ........................................................... 5 Combining Campuses ................................... 6 Goals and Objectives .................................. 8 Program Proposals ....................................... 10 Town Hall Meetings .................................... 11 NACURH 2015 .............................................. 12 MACURH 2015 .............................................. 13 Spring 2016 .................................................. 14

RHA’s 1st Formal Election .......................... 15 Move-Out Donation Drive ........................... 16 Conclusion ..................................................... 17 Letters of Support ....................................... 18

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Introduction

The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) has had a remarkable year. Before the 201516 academic year, our Residence Hall Association (RHA) was non-existent. On paper, we had an RHA set with an RHA president, but that was as far as the organization went. The unique nature of our campus housing model did not lend itself well to an over-arching governing body within housing. Due to the hard work of many individuals, we’ve cleared a number of hurdles and are pleased to present to you our first fully-operational year with a functioning, active RHA. We have completely revamped the organization and are super excited to share our story with NACURH!

A Look at UNO The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is one of four universities within the University of Nebraska system. We aren’t the largest, but we aren’t the smallest. We are located in the heart of Omaha, a city with a rich history. Our campus has over 15,000 students enrolled and about 2,100 of them live on campus.

UNO’s RHA As stated before, UNO lacked a structured RHA before this year.

With this new structure in place, RHA has become the umbrella organization, governing all hall councils, the Bill Pickett Chapter of the National Residence Hall Honorary, and is the official student voice for oncampus residents. We added many new positions to create a full and diverse membership. Our RHA includes a four person executive board, a general assembly of nine members, and one advisor.

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RHA Structure

The structure of UNO’s RHA is simple, but brand new to our campus. During the 2014-15 school year, a small group of individuals worked to overhaul the RHA constitution in order to create a functional, sustainable organization. The 2015-16 school year was the first year RHA was in operation—which is why our logo notes the established year of 2015! As mentioned in the introduction, RHA serves as the official voice of all on-campus residents, and is the umbrella organization for all hall councils and NRHH. Our executive board includes our president, vice president/NCC, NRHH president, and secretary/treasurer. The general assembly includes the executive board, four student government senators (two representing Dodge Campus, two representing Pacific Campus), two resident assistants (one from each campus), and all three hall council presidents. We have found this set-up to work quite well for our RHA. Our executive board meets every week with a set agenda. The full body meets every other week so as to give position updates, go over program proposals, committee updates, and discuss other items that we are planning.

We also formed two committees within RHA this year. Half of the members are on a sustainability committee where they look for ways to make our residence halls more eco-friendly.

This includes implementing hand dryers instead of paper towels and using automatic sinks. This group was also in charge of planning and implementing a move-out donation drive, which will be discussed later in this bid. Our sustainability committee tried not to just focus on water and energy conservation, but also on food waste, upcycling, etc. Our other committee is for marketing.

This committee partnered with NRHH to co-host events, created digital display signage to advertise RHA meeting times and contacts (remember: RHA is new—our fellow students needed some education around what our organization was for). The marketing committee made some strides, but we realize we need to spend more time on our brand and outreach next year.

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Executive Board President: Nick Rieschl

Nick is a current Communication Studies major and is in his junior year here at UNO. He has been heavily involved within housing and his fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha. He was president of the Maverick Village Hall Council from 2014-2015, a member of NRHH since 2014, and has recently become president of his fraternity. Nick has been an outstanding president for RHA in its first year. His leadership skills have really grown and everyone looks up to him because he always has things together! Nick has gone to every conference since MACURH 2013. Attending these conferences has really allowed him to understand the region and bring back awesome ideas for our campus.

Vice President/NCC: Nikki Preston Nikki is a current junior here at UNO majoring in Business Management. She is from Columbus, Nebraska and really enjoys the small -town atmosphere, making Omaha a big change for her. Nikki has been involved in Maverick Village Hall Council since 2013, and has also been a member of NRHH since 2014. She was the NCC IT at NACURH 2014 and has been the NCC ever since. She really enjoys going to conferences and meeting other NCCs from around the region. Nikki loves to talk about how different UNO’s campus is from others and incorporate new programs into our residence

NRHH President: Zech Craig Zech is a junior at UNO double majoring in Medicinal Chemistry and Biology. This is his first year as the NRHH president and he has been trying really hard to make it a better organization. Zech believes that recognition is very important, and he has been on his group to keep up with their OTMs. Because of his persistency, our NRHH chapter has submitted more OTMs this year than ever. He enjoys going to conferences to find out ways to better NRHH for UNO members.

Treasurer/Secretary: Erin Hathhorn Erin is a junior at UNO studying Mathematics and Finance. This is her second year as a resident assistant and this year, she is also a resident assistant mentor. Erin was one of the founders of the Scott Housing Council in 2014 and since, has passed the responsibilities onto residents which she has been mentoring ever since.

This is also her first year being a member of NRHH. She loves being a part of housing organizations and seeing how two campuses can work together to provide the best possible environment for the residents.

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Budget

RHA is fortunate to receive funds from Dodge Campus in order to operate. All residents on Dodge Campus pay an activity fee of $50.00, which is used for programming efforts within the residence halls. This account is managed by the Associate Director of Residence Life, who also serves as our advisor. Each summer, the budget is set—each piece of residence life received a cut of the activity fee funds. For instance, all Resident Assistant programming funds come from this fee, as do the funds hall councils use, NRHH, RHA, etc. This year, RHA (including funds for RHA, NRHH,

and conference travel) was allotted 15% of the overall activity fee budget. We are very fortunate to be supported by both our fellow residents and our housing professional staff.

As of April 30, 2015

Insight into our budget: RHA was allocated $3,500.00 for this year. Given that it was our first year, we felt comfortable with this. A bulk of our budget was spent on promotional items to get our name out this first year. For instance, since all of our residence halls are apartment-style, each comes with a full kitchen. During move-in week, RHA members passed out oven-mitts with our logo and information to all those moving in.

NRHH was allocated $1,000.00 for this year. About half of NRHH’s budget was spent to purchase UNO NRHH coffee mugs, which were given out to winning campus OTMs by the NRHH Prize

Patrol. NRHH also spent a good deal of money on the induction ceremony held in April 2016. Our chapter inducted 16 new members and had about 75 people (mostly parents and family members) in attendance for the induction—the most in school history!

Our conference budget this year was $6,000.00. This money is used to get our delegations to MACURH, No Frills, and NACURH. We have not quite spent all of our funds yet, as the payments for flights and registration have not come out of the account as of yet. We were gracious enough this year to receive a one-time grant from the Director of University Housing in order to take six students and our advisor to NACURH at the University of Delaware! Without this support, we would not have been able to afford the trip to NACURH this year.

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Combining Campuses You’ve likely picked up on some nuances already in our bid. What is Dodge? What is Pacific?

Let us explain!

UNO’s campus has expanded in recent years, and we’ve outgrown the main campus. Long story short, UNO now has two campuses, Dodge and Pacific. The two are only a mile or so apart.

Students are able to shuttle between the two campuses, depending on their course schedule, where they live, what they want to do, etc. Student housing is located on both campuses. Dodge

Campus has approximately 1,000 students, and Pacific has about 1,100. University Housing, a UNO department, manages Dodge Campus residence halls, and Scott Management, a local, private company, oversees Pacific Campus residence halls.

One of the biggest goals for us this year was to create a bridge between these two campuses, as in past years they have seemed distant. In terms of student organization involvement, there hasn’t been a vehicle for the two campuses to collaborate—until now!

Pacific Campus

Dodge Campus

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UNO RHA General Assembly Members, 2015-16.

Dodge Campus has operated with two hall councils, one for each apartment complex.

Each council is responsible for putting on monthly programs for students to attend. Just last year, Pacific Campus created their first hall council. Now this year, for the first time, each

hall council has put on events that have been open to both campuses, something that we have never had in past years. Although the turnout at events has remained at a majority of attendees from their home campus, we have had a few crossovers. This is great to see and we hope that more people continue to attend events at both campuses.

When we think of programs and even meetings, our organization has put great emphasis this year on building a true bridge between the two campuses. This means that our meeting locations are on a rotation. It also means that when we program (i.e. Town Halls, Dial-ADog, Elections, Move-Out Donation Trucks—all of which will be discussed in this bid), we are usually putting on two events—one for each campus.

A big part of this transformation can be attributed to including members from Pacific Campus on our RHA board. As of now, we have five members from Pacific Campus. This includes a resident assistant, two student government housing senators, and the Scott Housing Council President, all of which will always be members.

The unique split of our campus has been challenging to navigate at times, especially given that two different entities each operate a portion of the residence halls; however, RHA members have been impressed with housing staff on both campuses for their willingness to assist the organization in moving RHA forward.

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Goals & Objectives After we assembled our members of RHA in August 2015, the first order of business was to set our goals for the year. Without these as guideposts, a new organization like ours might flounder. Under President Nick Rieschl’s leadership, RHA members continually reviewed these goals.

We are happy to share the status of each with you here.

RHA General Assembly Member Goals Goal

Reason for Goal

Current Status

Become a governing body of all housing organizations

Need to coordinate efforts among all housing student groups and join both campuses

Completed! We are still working on some behind-the-scenes logistics, but we are operating as one unit.

Hold campus wide events

Joint programming or open programming ventures were a priority to bridge gap between campuses

Town Halls, Dial A Dog, and the MoveOut Donation Drive are just a few examples of collaborative programming between both campuses

Bring more Pacific campus students to conferences

Up until this point, Pacific residents weren’t aware of the conference opportunities

We opened up applications for MACURH to all residents on both campuses and were able to take a merged delegation

Be known to all residents on campus

It was critical for us to get our name out there so students know who we are!

A continued focus for 2016-17. We spent a lot of time ensuring RHA was running well internally, and didn’t spend as much time as externally

Attend at least 6 programs a semester (3 on each campus)

RHA members were asked to attend housing programs on both campuses to further reach fellow students and market RHA

Mixed success. Some of our members met or exceeded this goal, while others struggled.

Maintain a 2.5 GPA

Good leaders are well-rounded— excellent student leaders, but also good students in the classroom

Exceeded! After the Fall 2015 semester, the cumulative GPA average for RHA members was 3.65.

Currently awaiting Spring 2016 grades

Become comfortable with your role

Desire for members to feel comfortable with their role and responsibilities

Met this goal! By the beginning of the spring semester, we were well-oiled to take on our project list, which wouldn’t have happened without folks understanding their role

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RHA Executive Member Goals In addition to the RHA General Assembly goals noted, the Executive team also set forth exec-specific goals for this year. The goals are listed below.

Goal

Reason for Goal

Current Status

Be visible to the housing community

Execs are the leaders of RHA and should role model being visible and present

All execs held office hours each week, attended a number of programs, and served as a resource to many

Executive members Leading by example means being All exec agendas and minutes were should be transparent open and honest—RHA exec sought posted for all general members to to assembly members to embody these characteristics see, in addition to any students Be a unified executive body & hold each other accountable

Model good leadership in order to move RHA forward

Maintain a 3.0 GPA

Good leaders are well-rounded— excellent student leaders, but also good students in the classroom

The exec group met weekly, were diligent in completing their tasks, and were able to speak openly about successes and challenges in a judgefree space Exceeded! After the Fall 2015 semester, the cumulative GPA average for RHA members was 3.47.

Currently awaiting Spring 2016 grades

In addition, our RHA president also wanted to implement one-on-one meetings with each member. This was a way for him to personally sit down with each person and figure out what they wanted to get out of the new organization. He thought meeting with each member personally would help him build a relationship with them which is important because we will all be working with each other for the rest of the year. These were a great success! It was clear that Nick’s focus on relationship-building was a key part to RHA’s success this year.

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Program Proposals In order to ensure that the programs provided to students are the best they can be, our RHA implemented a system that requires all hall councils to submit program proposals. This is a form on MavSync (OrgSync), a collaborative tool that UNO has been using for a few years

now. Each of our three hall councils are required to submit this form to RHA before they put on a program. This form asks for items such as date, time, and location of the program, description of the event, the learning objective, supplies needed, and expected cost. RHA also approves their advertising flyer before it is released to residents. Having hall councils submit these proposals gives our RHA a chance to provide feedback and ensure there are appropriate financial resources available. If RHA approves the program, the hall council can move forward with planning. If RHA expresses concerns, the hall council has the opportunity to resubmit the program the following week with a new proposal and RHA will reconsider. The end goal is to ensure quality programming for all residents.

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Town Hall Meetings At the start of the year, our RHA was given the task of hosting a Town Hall meeting once a semester for our residents to give them an opportunity to voice their concerns. The RHA general assembly began planning this event in September with the Fall Town Hall to take place in November for both campuses. During these planning meetings, we identified the major conversation pieces in regards to housing and formatted a conversation card that would be used during the Town Hall. Topics on this card included work orders, Resident Assistants, programs, general housing improvements, etc. We also had a resident help us create an advertisement for us that was used to help advertise for this event.

During the Fall Town Hall, we brought in around 30 students between the two campuses and raised over $300 for our NRHH chapter’s philanthropy, Adopt-A-Family (which won a November OTM at the regional and national level). The event received positive feedback from both staff and residents and was extremely beneficial to the growth and publicity of RHA. We also hosted Town Hall Meetings in the spring semester too. During this past spring semester, we hosted another set of town halls—one for each campus. While our numbers dropped for our spring town halls, we were still able to engage some of our residents in discussions about the positives and negatives of on-campus life. RHA members we also able to update residents on the status of the requests, concerns, and questions posed from the fall town hall events.

Following each event, RHA provided housing professional staff the notes

from the meetings. Housing staff has been very diligent in responding to this feedback! For our Dodge street campus, RHA is looking into supplying hammocks and other housing improvements as well as increasing security with more patrolling from public safety officers and cameras. For our Pacific street campus, residents will be receiving an email survey with questions directly coming from the responses for that Town Hall. The staff is looking into more general housing improvements as well as sustainability efforts—as both were hot topics during these events.

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NACURH 2015

Last summer UNO was lucky enough to take seven delegates and an advisor to North Dakota State University. Five of these delegates were first-timers, and two of them were from Pacific campus! This was a huge step in the right direction for our school.

NACURH conferences are always so enjoyable because of the huge variety of schools that attend. It’s like MACURH, but considerably larger! It is always interesting to see first time delegates experience what NACURH is all about—and how well they “ride, ride, ride that pony.”

Presenting our Program At NACURH 2015, Nikki Preston (VP/NCC) and Nick Rieschl (President) had the opportunity to present a program. The two presented on an RHA program, Dial-A-Dog. This is a fundraising program that we did to raise money to attend the MACURH/NACURH related conferences as well as it was an opportunity to market RHA to the Housing community. Our program raised around $200 and spanned both campuses, giving all residents an opportunity to order food and learn about RHA. The presentation of the program was positively received.

Those in attendance had the opportunity to ask questions and discussion was very lively for the presentation. It was a great opportunity for both Nikki and Nick as it gave them an insight to presenting at a conference, but also gave them the opportunity to talk about our unique campus and our RHA.

VP/NCC Nikki Preston & RHA President Nick Rieschl presenting Dial-A-Dog at NACURH 2015.

NACURH Involvement Although our RHA is brand new, we take pride in the fact that UNO has always sent delegates to conferences. We believe that these leadership conferences are super important in helping students figure out how to help improve their campus environments.

All of our executive members keep up with weekly chats and believe that these sessions are the key to communication within the region. Since UNO tends to bring a pretty small and inexperienced delegation, we try our best to keep up with the “big dogs” when it comes to spirit points!

Every conference, we have submitted roll call videos, banners, and displays that our delegates work very hard on!

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MACURH 2015

This year, UNO attended MACURH 2015 in Columbia, Missouri. We were able to take nine delegates and one advisor. It was a great experience for us because we were able to take six first time delegates. They were all super anxious to see what a conference was all about! The other three delegates were all part of the RHA exec board. Another exciting part of this conference was that one of the delegates was from the Pacific campus hall council. Only two Pacific campus members had gone to a conference before then (for NACURH 2015).

One thing that our group loved about this conference was the keynote speaker, Ryan Sallans.

He is a huge advocate for the transgender communi-

UNO Delegation with selfie sticks, after taking a pit stop on our way to MACURH 2015 in Columbia, Missouri.

ty and had some amazing things to say at the conference. He went into a lot of detail about his transformation from female to male and it was great to be able to hear someone openly discuss this issue. UNO went through a big change this year by adding its first ever gender inclusive housing units. Our residence halls are committed to providing safe, inclusive, and supportive housing for all UNO students and our university felt that this would continue on with that goal.

A new piece our RHA added to this year’s MACURH conference trip was requiring all of our delegates to complete a post-conference wrap-up report. This report asked delegates to share the

programming sessions they attended and then reflect on how we may be able to replicate the program at UNO. Delegates were asked how the conference impacted their role as a student leader within our residential community, what they learned about themselves as a result of attending the conference, and if they would recommend the experience to a fellow student. We had 100% participation in the wrap-up reports and the responses were overwhelmingly positive. One delegate commented: “I learned a lot about different programs and events to hold on campus to liven it up and inform others about certain topics. As the representative for my residence hall, I hope to incorporate what I learned at the conference to help make campus life more fun and enjoyable for everyone around.�

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No Frills 2016 UNO took 3 students and an advisor to No Frills 2016 in Rolla, Missouri. Nick Rieschl, the RHA President, Nikki Preston, the RHA Vice President and NCC, and Zech Craig, the NRHH President, were all excited to add another

conference to their resumes. No Frills 2016 was filled with lots of boardrooms and serious business, but every-

UNO Delegation accepting the MACURH Building Block RHA of the Year Award at No Frills 2016 at Missouri S&T.

one still manages to find a little fun in it. Our University of Nebraska at Omaha delegation was the most anxious to get to bid discussions, seeing as we had submitted two carefully sought out award bids. We knew there was a lot of competition for both categories that we submitted for, and all of them had a fair chance at winning. We were ecstatic when we won not one, but BOTH of our award bids! Our RHA has been working frivolously to make improvements throughout the year, and these award bids really gave our group the confidence and reassurance that we were (and still are) on the right path!

Dial-A-Dog Fundraiser Dial-A-Dog is a fundraiser that we do almost every year to raise money for the conference budget. We buy an abundance of chips, hot dogs, and pop and sell every item for $1. We set up a Google phone number and post that number on our advertisement fliers all around housing on Dodge and Pacific campus. This last spring semester we did the event from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm during dead week. In the past, we have

found our most success by doing the event before finals week and late at night because this is when people are most likely up late studying. Bill Pickett, the Senior Director of Student Affairs for UNO and a NACURH fanatic, lets us borrow his weiner dog, Teddy, for the event. This is a big draw for residents because they will pay for any chance to see a cute animal! We bought around 250 hot dogs, 160 bags of chips, and 160 cans of pop. Between both campuses, this fundraiser raised us about $200.

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RHA’s 1st Formal Election This past year was a first for many things involving RHA and another one of those was the election process that was coordinated by RHA. In previous years, each Hall Council held their own elections and only members within that council were able to vote in the election but this year we wanted to change the way elections were done. In March, our RHA uploaded an application that was open to all residents on both campuses in which they could apply for an executive officer position in either their own Hall Council or in RHA. Once the applications were in, we created a bio page about the candidates so that residents could read about the candidate, what they would bring to the position and what position they were interested in. Following the closure of the application, the election itself took place on April 19. We had students go online to our MavSync (OrgSync) portal to access the form and vote for the candidates they felt were most qualified.

Students from both campuses voted. The election was Tuesday, April 19,

2016 from 8AM to 8PM. Voter turnout this first year was 5.5%. While we would have loved to see higher numbers, we are pleased with these results. To give you some perspective, the UNO Student Government elections in March 2016 had a voter turnout of about 4% for the entire campus. After polls closed, the election committee notified the winners of the results. This election process was a huge success as not only did we get RHA’s name out on a larger scale but we also elected the new officers of the Residence Hall Association, and the hall councils.

This is a much more equitable process than we have seen in the past and we are excited for these incoming officers, many who we hope to be in our organization for some time!

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This past semester, UNO’s RHA planned its first ever move out event. In early March, we partnered with Leadership Omaha and Youth Mart. Leadership Omaha is a 10-month program for leaders in the community put on by the Omaha Chamber of Commerce, and aims to expand participants professional network and hone in on their leadership skills. Youth Mart is a local non-profit on the campus of the Omaha Home for

Boys. This organization collects donations of appliances, clothes, furniture, etc. that will then be given to teenagers aging out of the foster care system so they can furnish their new living spaces. Our RHA knew we wanted to find a way to recycle the items students usually threw out so partnering with this organization was the best way we could do that.

Not only will these items be reused (a sustainability project in itself), the items donated go to individuals our age who are in need of them!

During every RHA general assembly meeting, we worked on the event and representatives of our committee even attended weekly meetings with the team from Leadership Omaha and Youth Mart to discuss the event and to ensure it was a success. It was a neat experience to be able to work with local business and community leaders in order to provide a service to our students and a service to the community—all in the name of sustainability!

The event itself was April 28 through May 9, with a kick-off event on April 30. For the kickoff event, we hung up fliers across our campus and residence halls as well as placed advertisements in our local newspaper and had radio stations advertise it for us. The event

received a lot of press and after only one day of collecting donations, we filled nearly one U-Haul truck. Both the UNO and Omaha community came out for this event, all with the intentions making UNO a more sustainable campus and being one of the leaders for it. This was a huge event for RHA and we are looking forward to future collaboration with both groups and hopefully impacting even more people in years to come.

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The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Residence Hall Association was tremendously transformed in just one year. We took an organization that did not exist and made it into something that can benefit the entire UNO housing community. We truly believe that we have built this from the ground up—and that our story showcases the elements important for a RHA Building Block of the Year.

We hope that you enjoyed reading some of the highlights from our year. While bid writing is challenging and it a lot of work, the time to reflect on the year was invaluable for our team. If you’re a newer school to MACURH or NACURH or simply a school that hasn’t put together too many bids, we encourage you to take a chance and submit an award bid! Regardless of if your bid wins, sharing your story to all in NACURH is important! We learned this valuable lesson through writing and constructing this bid, and while we would be honored to receive the NACURH Building Block RHA of the Year Award, we are humbled

to simply be considered for such an honor. Our story is one that we hope others can resonate with. Sometimes you come into an organization and everything is laid out perfectly for you, but for others, this isn’t the case. Either way, hang in there! You are important and the work you do for your organization is important too! Keep at it and ask for help— your regional RBD, the national RBD, and even just the other folks you meet at a conference can help you. Reach out! You might be surprised by the results :) Our main goal for the future is to continue to have regional and national involvement from our school, and with that comes getting involved in conferences. Getting awarded the RHA Building Block Award would truly give our school the confidence to make even more strides on our campus. Our RHA also plans to continue to make improvements in our housing community and work to get more students involved and interested in keeping UNO the great community it is today. It is not always easy to get people to join a new group on campus, but we are confident that we have the right leaders in place to move our organization and our university forward.

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Citations Blocks Background [pg. 1-17 & Citation Page]: Samsung Wallpapers (http:// www.samsung-wallpapers.com/uploads/allimg/140910/1-140910115U2.jpg).

UNO “O” Logo [pg. 2]: University of Nebraska at Omaha (http://www. unomaha.edu/university-communications/brand/).

Bird’s Eye View of Distance between Dodge & Pacific Campus [pg. 6]: Google Maps.

UNO Aerial Photo [pg. 17]: University of Nebraska at Omaha (http:// unophotos.photoshelter.com/).