The Residence Halls Association Congress voted in favor of suspending a portion of its constitution on Monday, and further discussed residential safety measures and top resident recognition through the National Residence Hall Honorary.
The RHA voted in favor of suspending a section of their constitution this semester that requires paying a $350 stipend to the programming coordinator. RHA President Jackson Farley presented the executive order during Congress on Oct 21. because RHA does not have a programming coordinator this semester.
RHA has had two programming directors step down for various reasons since the semester began. According to the Speaker of Congress Lane Adams, the RHA executive board did not feel that anybody met the qualifications at the time to temporarily hold the position.
The stipend will be moved to the legislative distribution fund, which Adams said is the “primary resource of the Residence Halls Association to help fund individuals, clubs and other organizations that provide some program or service to (campus residents) in a way that benefits their experience at Mizzou.”
RHA Financial Coordinator Matt Kalish presented that the distribution fund currently has $3,142.11
RHA’s Residential Living Committee and the Department of Residential Life [furthered discussion about safety hall measures](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2013/10/16/rha-reslife-discuss-hall-safety-measures/).
Kristen Temple, associate director for Residential Academic Programs, said that Residential Life has not made a decision, but will consider input from RHA’s Residential Life staff and residence hall staff across campus. Residential Living Committee Chairman Alec Ritter said that they came to the consensus that they did not want the doors being locked all of the time.
During the National Residence Hall Honorary Update, NRHH President Zachary Folk presented that Defoe-Graham is leading all of MU’s residence halls in NRHH’s “Of The Month” award competition as of the end of September.
The competition is a nationally recognition program set up through NRHH to “incentivize people to recognize others in the residence halls and on campus for just being awesome and doing great things to impact their community,” Folk said.
Each hall receives points for submitting a competition and additional points if they win at campus, regional or national levels. The winning hall at the end of the year will receive an NRHH-sponsored party. The competition nominations are written each month for various categories such as educational program, executive board member, first year student, and can be written by anyone. The nominations are submitted to NRHH’s website and members vote for campus winners.
Folk said NRHH acts as an honors society for the top one percent of leaders living in the residence halls “that work to promote (NRHH’s) pillars of service, leadership, scholasitcs and recognition within the residence halls.” NRHH membership is only open to the top one percent of students academically and the association receives one percent of RHA’s budget.