Welcome new and returning students!

My name is Keith M. Kruchten, and I am the President of the Residence Hall Association (RHA). My job on campus is to be the student voice of the residence halls.

RHA is the official student voice within the residence halls (FYI there are no dorms on campus). Within the scope of RHA, we have the hall councils, which meet every Tuesday at 9 p.m. and Believing in Culture (B.I.C.), which is the cultural connection in the halls. Don’t worry if you don’t think you have culture, you do. Culture is everything about you that makes up who you are.

Then there is the National Residence Hall Honorary. NRHH is comprised of the top 1 percent of all student leaders in the residence halls nationwide. If you think you have what it takes, join NRHH.

What does RHA do, you ask? Well it’s easier to ask what we don’t do, but I’ll tell you what we do anyways.

RHA is the social, cultural (B.I.C.), and educational source of programming in the residence halls. Every year we have outstanding programs such as the Block Party tonight in the Convocation Center, RHA Week(s) in the fall and spring, Lil’ Sibs Weekend in the spring and a number of other programs throughout the year.

RHA is also responsible for making physical improvements to the hall. Some of the most recent improvements have been the addition of televisions in the Stevenson food court, renovation of a number of rooms throughout the campus and the re-opening of the New Orleans room in the basement of Stevenson.

The New Orleans room is a great place to kick back, relax and enjoy the finer things in life such as an enormous television to watch the big game on Sunday, or a pool table to melt life’s stresses away.

Did I mention advocacy? RHA communicates on a daily basis with the administration both in housing and dining as well as throughout the campus. If you have an issue that you feel should be brought up, please contact us so that we can make your dream a reality.

Who likes television? We certainly do; we also set the programming schedule for Channel 8, so if you’d like to see a movie played let us know!

Now a piece of advice that might contradict what you’ve been told throughout your life: Greed is a wonderful thing! Too often one passes on a golden opportunity to advance themselves. This is the time to be greedy. Take advantage of every chance you can get while you’re still in school. Go out to every program you can, meet as many people as you can, take as much from this school as you can. You’re paying for it, you might as well get as much as you can from it.

If you want to find out more about RHA please visit our Web site at www.niu.edu/rha. If you would like to find out more about what RHA can do for you, please e-mail me at [email protected], and I would be more than happy to answer all of your questions.

Have a wonderful year, and be as greedy as you can with your education!