By Jenna Duncan, News Staff

After adding two hall councils and nearly 60 members, the Resident Student Association (RSA) is not only growing, but improving, Vice President for Administration Savannah Rose said.
The increase in members resulted from International Village, the largest residence hall on campus opening this fall. Now more students live on campus than ever, Rose said, and therefore increasing membership in RSA.
‘It’s definitely benefiting us in many ways,’ said Mike Becker, vice president for housing services. ‘We have more members, more constituents that we represent and that gives us a little more emphasis on campus.’
There have been some problems like the dining hall with the start of the new residence hall, but nothing on a large scale, he said. These complaints have been brought to the school, and administration has been cooperative and helped get things on track.
‘The school has definitely been on top of almost everything, it’s just kind of a process getting things going,’ Becker said. ‘As of now, everything is pretty much running smoothly. I wouldn’t say it’s really any different from any other residence hall.’
Vice President for Administration Savannah Rose said the increase of on-campus students has led to RSA’s growth, and the organization has adapted to the changes. There were more than 250 petitions to join the general council, and RSA accepted 60 of those. In addition, the retention rates of members have risen since last year.
Rose said she has been able to see the changes on campus as well as RSA meetings.
‘We see a lot more people on campus, I personally notice there’s a lot more students in general around,’ Rose said.
RSA is also settling into some internal changes, but were able to still do annual activites like the Husky Hunt successfully.
‘Although we did have some challenges last semester and some changes in e-board we were able to participate in homecoming and all those things, so I’d say we had a pretty successful semester,’ Rose said.
Within the executive board, RSA implemented a new position ‘- vice president for collaboration ‘- to help increase RSA’s involvement on campus. Through this position, student groups can reach out to RSA to help with funding and coordination of events to help get more students attending events.
‘I think it’s made RSA run a lot more smoothly and it’s increased our presence in other student groups,’ said Julie Rizzalo, who serves the new position. ‘It’s helped our outreach to more residents.’
Though Rizzalo said the position was slow at the beginning, it has picked up, and anticipates involvement to grow this semester.
‘I think that this semester is going to pick up a lot more since more students know about it,’ she said. ‘It’s more defined as a position but it still has it’s challenges, but it’s definitely growing and is definitely going to improve.’
The first large program RSA is sponsoring this semester is the Snow Ball, and tickets go on sale at 8 p.m. today.
General council meetings are held every Wednesday nights at 7 p.m. in 135 Shillman Hall. All students are welcome to attend.