The Residence Hall Assembly revised its by-laws at its final meeting of
the semester Monday to encourage and require member attendance.

After an RHA representative is absent three times, a residence hall
has one week to begin impeaching its representative or it will not be
able to allocate money from the assembly until the representative is
removed, said RHA President Andrew Harpold, Grand Rapids senior.

“The old by-laws didn’t say what counted as an absence,” said
Secretary RaeAnne Werner, Sterling Heights sophomore.

Werner said representatives can be absent from three business
meetings, team meeting and service hours without punishment.

After three absences in any one of these areas, a hall will lose the
right to request funds, she said.

Harpold said the revised legislation presented to the group did not
have any major differences from the original document.

“Basically we wanted to clean things up because there were loopholes
and ways to get around things,” Harpold said. “We didn’t change or
create anything.”

He said the consequences of failing to abide by the rules needed to
be more clear.

Werner and Harpold said the revision was not prompted by any
particular hall’s failure to abide by the rules.

Troutman Hall President Anthony Markwort, Rochester Hills sophomore,
said the legislation was presented at a bad time.

Many of the hall councils canceled meetings the week the legislation
was presented because of Thanksgiving break, he said.

“The legislation is confusing, at a bad time and I don’t think
attendance should be forced. No one is going to want to come to
anything if they are forced to come,” Markwort said.

Some members of the group said the attendance policy needed to be
enforced because the group relies on participation.

“If someone cannot commit to these meetings then that is
ridiculous,” said Student Government Association Rep. Todd Burlingham,
St. Joesph freshman.

Some students proposed a legislation amendment stating
representatives could not be counted as absent when another student is
sent in their place. The amendment was denied 32 to 32.

“We can’t send proxies all the time because they don’t know what we
talked about the week before,” Burlingham said.

Sweeney Hall Director Kimberly Ochoa said the attendance rule is too
strict because halls rely on RHA money and students need to focus on
education.

“You have to remember that RHA members are students too. They are
here for an education first,” Ochoa said.

Although the topic of attendance was discussed for about an hour and
a half, no amendments were passed on the issue.

The group also discussed the number of service hours each
representative and president must do.

They now must complete one service hour a week.

Rep. Kari Talik, Saginaw senior, proposed an amendment requiring
four service hours a month.

It met both support and opposition.

In business unrelated to the legislation, Harpold made the
announcement Residence Life obtained the WB channel for residence hall
cable.

The WB is now available on channel 58 for on campus residents,
Harpold said.

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