Students a no-show to question executives at RHA election forum

The Willkie Auditorium appeared empty Monday evening, as three candidates waited in suits for students to come and ask questions about the future of the Residence Halls Association. \nBut not a single student showed up at the forum for the candidates of the only ticket running in the RHA executive elections.\nThe ticket, “Channel 4 News Team,” has four candidates, but sophomore Luke Fields, running for vice president of internal affairs, is currently studying abroad in Lima, Peru and was not present. \nVoting for RHA is today from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. Students must be living in the residence halls and vote in their respective hall’s center desk, presenting an IU student ID. \nSophomore Sarah Colan, who is running for vice president of student affairs, mentioned the rise in student apathy this year, as IUSA experienced similar problems last week when only about 1,000 votes were cast for the one ticket running.\n“Next year, we will focus on improving the involvement and excitement for students to run and be excited,” Colan said.\nAdam Pozza, a sophomore running for RHA president, said that because there is only one ticket running, the ticket is going to win either way.\n“IUSA had the same problem with only 1,000 votes for their Congress when in the past they’ve had 7,000 to 8,000 votes,” Pozza said. “It’s been an interesting election season, with IUSA and RHA.” \nSophomore Daniel Sloat, running for vice president of programming, said that students shouldn’t feel that because only a certain amount of people vote then only those people care. \nThe only thing that would stop students from voting is the one-ticket ballot; students feel their votes don’t matter anyway, Pozza said.\n“Tomorrow will be different,” Pozza said Monday night. “There is only one ticket and there won’t be any competition.”\nInstead of competing against another ticket in today’s election, Colan said encouraging students to vote will be the main concern.\nShe said that the student apathy is “really strange,” and she attributes that to the new RHA constitution because of the ideas implemented. \nThis year was the first year the new construction of the constitution was in place, with the three candidates present mentioning that the RHA administration had to struggle against that. \nOne difference in the constitution is that this year, meetings included the presidents from the 11 residence halls in addition to two delegates – tripling the size of the meetings and making it difficult for names and people to be learned, Colan said.\n“We learned this year what changes to make in order for things to work next year,” Pozza said.\nPozza, Colan and Sloat acknowledged that their party announced their candidacies early, noting that because they each have had experience with RHA positions since their freshman year, the factor may have scared away others who considered running, as well.\nFor next year, the platform consists of allowing people to know support is available at the RHA level. In addition, RHA represents nearly all freshman on campus living in residence halls, “people who are so new to college, that they don’t know not how to represent themselves,” Fields said in an e-mail.\nPozza said goals will be to increase retention and quality of housing for students, along with better programming involvement for students.\n“If students are involved in active programming, it is likely that they will know this is a good place to live and like going to the activities,” Pozza said. \nThe greek system works because people enjoy the events and the atmosphere and there is a good amount of interest, Pozza said.\n“(Incoming) President (Michael) McRobbie said he wants to update to the 21st century,” Pozza said. “It is a great opportunity to work with him in the upcoming months.”\nOnce elected to their positions, the candidates hope to create more social events for people to get to know each other. Pozza said that in the summer, he plans to take the time to approach the orientation team and ask for five to 10 minutes to speak to students to get the word out about RHA. \nEven now, as president of Briscoe Quad, Pozza said he is taking the time to help a student interested in running for the president position for next year. \nSloat is currently president of Ashton, Colan is director of environmentalism, while Fields is the former president of Eigenmann.\n“We have something unique as we come from different dorms,” Sloat said.\nColan agreed, saying, “We’re different people, but we’re all very passionate.”