What is RHA?

Prior to Fall 2020, if you wanted to submit a maintenance request, you had 200 characters to do so—fewer characters to describe your issue or concern than you’re allowed in a modern tweet. Similarly, you were unable to upload photos or videos of the pertinent maintenance concerns, and RAs and Hall Directors were unable to easily monitor the status of maintenance requests for their residents. After hearing from residents for years that they wanted a better platform for their maintenance requests, RHA compiled a report of resident concerns and delivered it, along with a series of recommendations, to HRL.

In Fall 2020, a brand new maintenance request system debuted, addressing the issues brought up by RHA. Today, the maintenance request system interfaces directly with StarRez, allowing RAs and Hall Directors to monitor their residents’ maintenance requests. Residents now have thousands of characters to describe their maintenance concerns, and they’re able to upload photos and videos to further support their requests. Residents are now also able to submit maintenance requests for public spaces in their residence halls—such as floor lounges—and see what requests other residents have submitted for common spaces, decreasing the number of duplicate maintenance requests that get submitted.

In the process of addressing the concerns that RHA brought up, HRL was also able to identify a number of internal issues that contributed to resident dissatisfaction related to incomplete or unsatisfactorily completed maintenance requests. RHA’s report helped initiate re-training for Facilities employees and process redesigns that have ultimately increased the rate at which maintenance requests are completed and the degree to which Facilities communicates with residents regarding their requests.

Prior to Spring 2021, residents had to pay to do laundry in residential laundry rooms, typically at a price of $1.50 or more per load of laundry, depending on the size of the load and how long the load was in the dryer for. After gently urging HRL for years to provide laundry services to residents at no cost, alongside SGA and other student leaders, HRL implemented free laundry in Spring 2021, with no increase in the cost of housing or other fees for residents. With this change in laundry cost, HRL also partnered with a new laundry vendor and installed brand new washers and dryers—something else that residents and RHA had been advocating for.

SGA, CDAC, and WST launched the Menstrual Product Program (MPP) in Spring 2020 with a simple goal: make menstrual products easily and readily available across campus, for free, for those who need them. In Spring 2021, we worked with SGA to start expanding the program into residence halls, and we’re now piloting the program in 10 residence halls across campus.

Prior to Fall 2020, residents and RAs seeking funding through RHA’s Legislative Council (LC) had to navigate through a two-week process to secure funding. Slow and restrictive, this two-week process limited the number of residents who could readily access Legislative Council funds and made planning events with short turnarounds more difficult. The result: residents across campus weren’t getting the maximum benefit out of RHA.

In Fall 2020, we revised our LC bill submission process to a more streamlined one-week process, making requesting funding from LC more approachable. Since then, we’ve seen a growth in the number of bills that are able to be passed through Legislative Council, and we’re able to deliver events to residents faster.

In Fall 2020, we completely overhauled our financial systems and transitioned all financial paperwork to a digital format. Whereas residents seeking reimbursements previously had to physically fill out an Expenditure Authorization Form (EAF) and meet up with their community’s Finance Coordinator to hand in their paperwork, residents can now submit all paperwork directly to their Finance Coordinator online—without the need to meet up in person.

Internally, this move to a digital platform has increased our processing time immensely. Because we no longer have to walk paperwork across campus, moving it back and forth between over five stakeholders in the financial processing pipeline, the timeline for receiving reimbursements has drastically improved. In previous years, residents often didn’t receive reimbursements for upwards of two months. With our new system in place, we’re able to issue reimbursement regularly in under a month, and we’re saving thousands of sheets of paper annually. Residents are now also able to track their reimbursements’ progress through our financial pipeline and receive real-time feedback on any issues with their submitted EAFs.

Our RHA regularly attends one conference per semester: SAACURH’s Regional Leadership Conference in the Fall, SAACURH’s Regional Business Conference in the Spring, and NACURH’s Annual Conference in the Summer. At each conference, our delegation attends workshops to learn more about advocacy, event planning, leadership, budget management, and more, and we also represent Georgia Tech and vote on our residents’ behalf on legislation that impacts residence life operations nationwide.

To continually develop our residents and members throughout the year, we’ve developed the RHA Leadership Track. All members of our organization are encouraged to complete the program. Graduates of the program will have completed several leadership advancement opportunities from hosting their own Community Council event to attending a national or regional conference. You can view graduates of our RHA Leadership Track here and learn more about the program here.

Every year, we help support dozens of Community Council Officers who make up the typical 15-20 Community Councils across campus. These CCOs are dedicated to hosting events and initiatives in their respective residence halls, and they make funding available to every resident and RA in their community. In this way, events and initiatives are designed for residents, by residents.

Maybe you know RHA best for the classic events we bring to campus every year! For a number of years in the early 2010s, RHA hosted an annual Casino Night Tournament, where residents could play blackjack, poker, and more with other residents, earning prizes with their earnings. Resident Appreciation has gone through multiple iterations of the years—from Resident Appreciation Day to Resident Appreciation Week to Rezfest—but has always centered around giving back to residents each year, whether it’s through free meal vouchers, custom Coke bottles, free slices of pizza, or a great time bouncing around on inflatables on Tech Green. More recently, our “Music & Mocktails,” ”Give Thanks,” and “GT Unite” events have become RHA staples.

Other recent campus-wide events have included:

• Trek Through Tech—a week-long scavenger hunt with over 700 participants, tons of prizes and free shirts, and fun facts about Tech
• DoggoPalooza—a collaboration with Happy Tails Pet Therapy to bring therapy dogs on campus, along with hot dogs and corndogs, for residents to enjoy while they made chew toys for The Atlanta Humane Society
• Fall Festival—a night of lawn games, inflatables, and a haunted corn maze where residents came together to have a good old-fashion fair (complete with popcorn and cotton candy!)
• The Price is Pretty Close—a “The Price is Right” inspired game show where over 500 participants got to test their grocery-store knowledge to earn over $3000 worth of prizes for themselves and their team