FY25 DOP Election Candidates

State your motivation for joining the RHA Executive Board.

I am very passionate about Georgia Tech’s Residence Hall Association since my involvement in the North Avenue Hall Council as well as Committees. My motivation to join the RHA Executive Board is to promote wellness through events, implement events that are known around campus, improve knowledge about RHA in residential communities, foster community amongst residents, and help improve quality of life for residents. I believe as Director of Programming I would be able to accomplish these goals.

Please discuss any obligations (work, extracurricular, and otherwise) that you anticipate having external to RHA during the duration of your intended term and how you plan to balance/prioritize your commitments.

During my intended term I will be taking 13 credit hours of courses and 3 credit hours of research. I decided to take 13 hours this semester to ensure I would have time to do RHA work if I got elected for this position. My time spent doing research is primarily during the work day in between my classes, with a fairly flexible schedule. I am planning to stay involved with NAV Hall Council because I am passionate about their goals and progress. They meet and have area-wide meetings each once a week for an hour. Director of Programming responsibilities would come above Hall Council tasks, and all the members of that council are clear of my intentions to run for this position. I am in the Society of Women Engineers, Women in Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Society, and Bioinformatics Club, but I am not a leader so I only attend when I am available. Overall, I have made my priority my classes and the potential to be DOP this semester by not taking on many additional commitments.

Please discuss any relevant prior experience and how it has prepared you for the position(s) you are
applying for.

This past semester I have been on the North Avenue Hall Council. I was the Financial Coordinator and I have also been a part of the Financial Oversight and Programming Committees. I attended the South Atlantic Affiliate of College and University Residence Halls conference (SAACURH) to further my leadership understanding. I was able to learn from RHA members across the entire southeast about how they were fostering relationships in their own universities. This conference also allowed me to get to know the advisor and two members of the executive board better. Through my involvement last semester, I have fallen in love with working alongside residents, aiding in making their experience on campus the best it can be, and growing the community across campus for residents. The Director of Programming position would help me expand my leadership skills and allow me to learn how to create a space of safety and community. I have been serving as Interim Director of Programming since the end of November 2024. Since my selection as Interim, I have begun attending meetings with the RHA Executive Board, the RHA Exec Board Advisor, as well as running the programming committee meetings. I would soon start meeting with the Executive President as well. I attended the Spring Retreat and shared my event plans for this semester if I am selected. I spent a good amount of time on my Christmas break preparing this event plan so I could express my ideas clearly and well. I also began budgeting before the Spring semester so I would start ahead of the game. I have fully planned, budgeted, and prepared for an event on January 25th. I am working alongside the LGBTQ+ resource room and SCPC to plan an additional event on February 5th. I have ordered catering and communicated with other organizations about this event, with more planning to come as the event approaches. My general events planned for the Spring are: Board Game Bash, Drag Show, Bouquet Making, and Around the World (cultural end of year celebration). I also plan to instill biweekly events during my office hours where residents can come by and get free coffee, donuts, etc and discuss wellness/questions/comments they have with me. I am planning to continue using the programming committee this semester and hope to recruit new members as well. I have been learning about being in charge of the resource room by using Booqable and plan to meet with Farhan as needed to discuss resource room details. I believe that my position last semester as well as acting as Interim Director of Programming these past couple of months has prepared me for this role because I have learned about my responsibilities and begun serving in my intended application role. I have learned how to plan, budget, and prepare for my first event, getting me ready for future events I would do this for as well.

Please discuss your interest in the specific position(s) you are applying for.

I am interested in this specific position because I believe I can follow through with Jackie’s goals from last semester: creating a sense of wellness within events, implementing 2 events that multiple people know about beforehand, and improving general knowledge about RHA in residential communities. I used Jackie’s plans and vision for last semester to frame my plan for the Spring and then built on it based on what I felt would be a strong event plan for residents. In this role I would foster community amongst residents, plan carefree, fun events that help improve wellness, and advertise events so people know about them and recognize RHA’s involvement on campus. I would like to improve overall event planning in RHA for the future. I believe if I do my best work this semester it will allow the future Director of Programmers to keep up a strong presence on campus. I am a very organized person and I’ve been learning how to create a system for my preparation for events, which I could then eventually pass on to the next DOP at Turnover, creating a well-refined, ordered system for the future.

What do you plan to bring to the position(s) and organization at large?

I plan to bring my organized, enthusiastic, and kind being to this position and the organization. I believe these qualities would set me up well for this role because it requires someone who can organize all aspects of an event while also having effective communication skills. I think my event plan for the semester would help the residents with a variety of things. My first event planned is a Board Game Bash on January 25th which is a great event for residents who enjoy board games. There will also be a create your own board game station and general craft station to keep with the theme while targeting individuals who don’t enjoy board games as much. I will have food and drinks to help increase attendance and plan to try to talk to residents who attend and encourage them to stay for a bit/attend future events. This event is going to be fairly lowkey but I think it will be a strong start to the semester and is indoor in the Exhibition Hall since it’s still cold outside. The second event is a Drag Show on February 5th in which RHA will partner with the LGBTQ+ resource room and SCPC to create an event where performing queens will perform for those attending. RHA is catering and hosting a table with prizes and ideally run by executive board members. This is a great opportunity to spread RHA reach on campus and work alongside other organizations to put on a fun event! The next event is Bouquet Making, potentially partnering with SCPC and hosting the event in March. We will buy flowers and set up for residents to make bouquets for themselves or friends. This will just require some craft items, and can ideally be an event that is done on Skiles walkway that would attract a lot of people. The last event I have planned is Around the World which would be a cultural end of the year celebration on Tech Green. This would be a fusion of countries from around the world, potentially partnering with cultural organizations. It would include dance, music, food, booths, and more all catered to the international theme. I would give out passports at check in that residents could fill with passports from the booths representing countries. There would be internationally themed crafts like origami, henna tattoos, and paper maracas. Themed t-shirts could also be included in this event! I would love to involve Hall Councils in the event as well like at the Fall Festival, and if partnering with cultural organizations doesn’t work out they could run the booths instead. We would use GT Catering to get themed international food at the event. Most of the budget would go towards this event and it would help celebrate the end of the year, spread culture and diversity around campus, expand RHA’s reach, allow for a break from classes and focus on wellness, and allow residents to have a great time! I would also have small events biweekly during my office hours to help me connect with residents in a smaller setting giving out small things like coffee, donuts, etc to incentivize attendance. The organization at large would be more organized after I complete and execute my system, the events will have spread RHA’s reach across campus, residents will have enjoyed the events, and had the opportunity to help their own respective wellness. I would foster a community amongst residents and RHA members allowing for a more successful organization as a whole.

If you could improve any one thing about RHA—related to your position(s) of interest or not—what
would it be and why?

One thing I would improve about RHA would be its advertisement and reach on campus. 45% of students at Georgia Tech live on campus (around 9000 people) and they should all know what RHA is, what we do (specifically the executive board and area councils), and our connection to residence halls, hall directors, NRHH, and RA’s. I would like every resident to at least know of what we do and our mission, which I think would also lead to better knowledge about RHA events and increase overall attendance.

If your answer to the previous question is something that can be fixed, how might that be done? If it’s
something that can’t be changed, what can we do to adjust?

I do not know if this issue can be entirely fixed but I do think there are things we can do to adjust and try to resolve the issue, or at least make it less prevalent. A lot of residents are generally very interested in becoming an RA and/or attending RA events and there is much better knowledge surrounding this aspect of housing. I believe the Lunch and Learn revolving around RA Interview Tips is a step in the right direction but I think we can even reach outside of Area Councils too. Our RA Liason is our connection to RA’s and everything they do. An idea I had would be to let her know we are trying to spread RHA’s reach on campus. She can begin spreading this information to other RA’s (group chats, area groups, friends, etc). Then our Liason can tell residents at the very first meeting of the year about us and what we do, ensuring they know who we are. We can use our Liason to communicate with other RA’s about events we have planned and they can send flyers/information to their residents. RA’s can encourage residents to attend Hall Council meetings, which would allow them to learn more about RHA. Residents can be made aware of RHA Hall Council and Executive Board as another way to be involved in RHA outside of becoming an RA. We can have RA’s mention to residents that we have an office in Matheson Hall and a resource room with items they can borrow if they’d like. Hall directors could also help spread the word and we could partner with Hall Councils to share information about RHA at meetings to make sure our reach is spreading as much as possible. These are just some ideas I have to spread RHA’s presence on campus, which I believe would improve RHA’s effectiveness and ubiquity on campus.

State your motivation for joining the RHA Executive Board.

I have always loved events and planning events to bring people together for experiences that can brighten their day. I think RHA is a vital part of campus, not only in terms of the fun activities and memories but also as a resource to help people feel less alone in such a large campus and city. As events director of Hemphill Hall Council, many people I speak with who attend events at Hemphill feel excited for events and feel that it is a way to relax and unwind. I want to bring that feeling of excitement and restfulness to the rest of campus as well, through the RHA executive board.

Please discuss any obligations (work, extracurricular, and otherwise) that you anticipate having external to RHA during the duration of your intended term and how you plan to balance/prioritize your commitments.

For the rest of this semester and term, I will likely have many obligations that I will need to manage my time accordingly for. I am a tutor and I intend to also be involved in research and volunteering, as well as in Medhacks and Medical Robotics. I am also the current events director for Madhatter Knits as well, and I regularly craft for charity and for my small business. However, despite my obligations, I have found that working for Hemphill Hall Council, especially in larger-scale events, is something I am greatly passionate for, and that allows me to utilize my time efficiently and effectively and incorporate my obligations as the current Events Director for Hemphill as a regular aspect of my day. I have a separate organizational method I utilize to draft and plan events, budgeting, and communications, and I have a Canva graphic document set up to easily create sweet and fun posters to advertise events. I also regularly speak with residents at events, and many have come to expect me at events and actively look out for events our hall council holds. I also set reminders for myself daily to look over and keep track of the work I must do, and all of my files and documents are accessible for my team to view as well, and I make sure to update the rest of Hemphill Council on events-specific activities. This allows me to hold myself accountable and be honest about the tasks I must do to effectively conduct my role. Though life may be busy at times, I am passionate about the extracurriculars and work I commit to, especially RHA, and I will always organize my day to encompass all of the meetings and tasks I hold responsibility for.

Please discuss any relevant prior experience and how it has prepared you for the position(s) you are
applying for.

In high school, I worked primarily in communications and marketing for charity and for my internship with Congresswoman Grace Meng. I conducted local events for beach preservation, donation events for homeless shelters, and helped raise over $150,000 for hospitals in Long Island, New York, with a team of 6 others during the COVID pandemic. Through these varied experiences, I became very passionate about event planning and coordination, and I learned many communication skills, graphic design, and online organizational methods through regular practice and trial and error. Now, in college, I employ the skills I have built up over the years in the extracurricular organizations I am greatly passionate for and have dedicated my time towards. Over the summer of 2024, I worked as a FASET leader, conducting almost 20 sessions for incoming students. It was an incredible and exciting experience, and helped me develop my time-management skills, my leadership, and allowed me to recognize my skills in helping others and making people feel welcome. I actively communicated with others and did my best to help every FASET event run smoothly, and even now I have students I spoke to during small group sessions, registration, or in the process of general guidance asking me for information and advice. Much of FASET involved behind-the-scenes preparation, and I learned through observing our leadership team about preparing for events in advance, and how to set the scene for the day of an event. An often overlooked part of FASET that taught me greatly was our name tags: several days before a session, some leaders would come together to pull apart and prepare the name tags for each incoming student. While many incoming students simply think of the tags as a neat token of their FASET day and assume they all came in prepackaged, we as FASET leaders actually had to painstakingly cut each and every single piece of paper, and individually prepare every name tag, plastic holder, and lanyard. It was a tedious process at times, but I was often there to help prepare them whenever I wasn’t in a session. It felt special to me to know that, while these name tags were not the focus of FASET, to say the least, they still made the experience just a bit more exciting and impactful, and it was just one small detail among many other aspects that came together to make our sessions so successful. I also often spoke with families who came to each session, with many appreciating the guidance and advice I was able to give, and appreciating the “human-ness” of our sessions. The event was not only to familiarize students to Georgia Tech; it was also to greet families, and welcome students to an incredibly exciting chapter of their lives. After my time in FASET, I was accepted as the Events Director for Madhatter Knits. I was empowered by the lessons I learned through FASET and through my past experiences in charity and crafting, and I had many ideas for activities and events we could hold for Madhatter Knits. Our role in our community is to make hand-knit hats for babies in NICU, and to support families who are going through the NICU process. One of my first ideas as Events Director was an Alice in Wonderland themed Halloween tea party. It not only celebrates our role in crafting and helping others through craftsmanship, as well as our unique and fun name, but it also allows for new members to join a low-stakes celebration as their first meeting, instead of being overwhelmed or nervous to immediately learn how to crochet, knit, or use our hat looms. It ended up being a great success, and we had many new members who saw our advertisements for the event and were excited to join the club. At the event, I was able to hold a lesson for crocheting, and I taught almost a dozen people how to crochet a circle, the basic starting stitch for a hat. For our later events, I was able to hold small group sessions to teach students how to crochet, knit, and use our looms, and we have had many completed projects from those events. Every event has technical purposes, but it is always important to never lose track of what you are doing an event for: in many cases, I have found that an event cannot simply be boiled down to a singular fact or figure you want to convey to an audience. You must also keep in mind what you want the audience to experience and what memories you want the event to impart on those who attend. I kept this in mind when entering my role in the Hemphill Hall Council as the Events Director. To incentivise more participation in our hall council, I came up with the idea of conducting events after every meeting, whether that be a fun snack served or an activity. We have boosted our attendance with a strong interest meeting and regular events, with some of our most popular events being a stationary giveaway and study night, a pumpkin painting and crafts night, and a matcha tasting event, where I worked with a student who proposed the idea to order supplies and create a setup that was feasible for our event location, the Crecine first-floor lounge. To advertise our events, I hung up posters around Crecine and the two Center Street buildings, and I also made a newsletter, though there were difficulties in circulating information through email. I had the idea of hosting a large, campus-wide event after realizing there were rarely any events in Burger Bowl and hearing residents tell me that they wished there were more events on West Campus. Initially, the idea started as a Halloween event, but quickly transitioned into a November event to fit the theme of Health and Wellness. This was more feasible, and fit with what I envisioned for those participating in the event, as I wanted the event to be relaxing and I wanted participants to be free to explore the various resources available to them on campus. I reached out to several mental health organizations on campus, many of which I became familiar with through my work in the Flag building through FASET, as well as to Chick-fil-A for food catering, and to Parents with Pups, as they are a tremendously important campus institution. After almost two months of preparation, in which I had numerous meetings to coordinate all the details of the day and many supply runs for different equipment we needed for the day, it was so exciting to see it come together and to see many people come to enjoy the event. We had 187 people sign the attendance form, and most of our supplies were utilized, with many people coming to visit the information booths, play with the puppies, and use the equipment from the CRC. My role in Hemphill is one I am tremendously passionate for, and I am excited to keep working with RHA this semester, whether it be through the executive board or through Hemphill. I cannot wait to keep learning more about events-organizing and communication to not only improve my professional skills, but also myself.

Please discuss your interest in the specific position(s) you are applying for.

Because of my love for event-planning, I am applying for the Director of Programming role. I have many ideas for large-scale events that would benefit students on campus, such as a botany experience with the Atlanta Botanical Garden and a spring cultural festival. I am able to respectfully and professionally communicate and execute events, and I have extensive teamwork experience from my work in FASET and other on-campus and off-campus opportunities. I think that events are what makes our campus especially unique and fun, and they provide a valuable opportunity for students, especially during stressful times of their lives.

What do you plan to bring to the position(s) and organization at large?

For this position, I hope to bring my own ideas for events to the table, and work with others in hall council and on the executive board to coordinate and plan events and outreach towards the general student body. For example, as an avid lover of plants, I hope to create a botany experience for the student body. This would not only promote wellness, due to the extensive research on plants promoting mental health, but it will also help residents of Georgia Tech in exploring new passions, interests, and teaching students how to care for plants, a skill some people may have never come into contact with before. For the Botany Experience, we could invite speakers from Atlanta Botanical Gardens come to a large atrium space and teach seminars on houseplant care and cooking with vegetation and flora, two of the courses already offered at the Botanical Garden, through interactive activities: a step-by-step potting session for students to make their own tabletop zen gardens, and a plating session using a GT Dining-catered buffet of warm dishes to show examples of quick and easy meals students could obtain at GT. This will not only help alleviate a lot of the stress of going to dining halls and having to choose different foods, but will also help students who have never come into contact with plating dishes based on nutritional health, and can also help students discover new dishes that they may not have ever considered trying before. Furthermore, a tabletop zen garden, especially one utilizing succulents, is a low-water garden, and does not need as much maintenance as some other plants. A great deal of stress when keeping foliage is the worry of them dying, so having an instructor who is able to give a seminar on how to properly keep a low-stakes garden is incredibly beneficial for students, and it also gives students a companion. We could also purchase ingredients and common grocery items for students to build their own salads, sandwiches, sushi, and snacks, skills students will likely need for college and beyond. In addition, we could offer many arts and crafts activities for students to try as they’re eating, such as bracelet weaving, DIY crystal suncatchers, and making artificial plants and vines through crochet, origami, or wire sculpting. It is these ideas and more that make me excited for this role as Director of Programming, and makes me very passionate about hosting events for RHA.

If you could improve any one thing about RHA—related to your position(s) of interest or not—what
would it be and why?

A large difficulty of hosting events is how to communicate them to a student population. I think one of the largest issues, not only with RHA but with Georgia Tech as a whole, is the decentralization of communication and advertising for events and resources. This is an issue with many organizations I am involved with, such as NSTP and Naugle Communication Center, and I believe it is an impediment in students of Georgia Tech taking full advantage of the amazing opportunities, most of which free, this campus offers. While RHA does a good job in social media marketing, I believe there is still more to be done to fully and successfully communicate the role of RHA in students’ lives here on campus.

If your answer to the previous question is something that can be fixed, how might that be done? If it’s
something that can’t be changed, what can we do to adjust?

I believe a way to help remedy the issue of communications gaps is not only to more closely interact with the student body, but to also take full advantage of tabling opportunities and external promotional events. For example, there is a club and organization fair each semester that is very important in drawing new members of organizations. While I am not completely informed on RHA’s promotional activities, I believe that it is events such as these that allow for the best way to communicate to the larger student audience on what RHA is able to complete and what RHA’s role is in a student’s life. Furthermore, regular tabling sessions, such as on the Tech Green walkway, is also a good way to verbally communicate to the student body on what RHA does. Having only a few people sit at a table for about an hour can still allow the student body to see our organization visually, and we could pass out flyers for upcoming events and ways to participate in local residence hall councils as well. Programming events does not only rely upon supplies and budget; RHA can also take a large part in students’ lives through social media and verbal and visual communication. By becoming a more solidified aspect in students’ lives, there are even more amazing events and opportunities that our organization can provide to the student body.