La Salle University

Resident Student Association

Making La Salle your second home.

Our aim is to make your time here on La Salle's campus as enjoyable as possible by putting on fun events and by ensuring that any resiential concerns are met with careful attention.

RSA at La Salle University has two main functions, to represent resident students on university committees addressing any and all residential concerns, and to provide programming for students while they reside on campus.

Concerns RSA has helped to address in the past range from things relating to safety and security to physical facilities concerns and even to things such as the guest policy.

Examples of our programming successes in the past include 4 years of The Price is Right game show, where we have given away over $3000 dollars in prizes, the revival of the Mr. and Ms. La Salle Pageant, and the long standing traditions of Carnifall on Homecoming Weekend, and Spring Fling. We have also done smaller things like bus trips to Medieval Times, midnight coffee and doughnuts during finals, and hosted capture the flag on main campus.

This year we are working some good ideas for new programs to keep things exciting, and are also planning to bring those old programs to the next level. You’ll just have to wait to see what they are, sorry :)

You can try your floor senators, your area government board, GAM, or directly to the exec board with our email address, rsa@lasalle.edu. It typically depends on the scale of the idea that you have on who the best group to go to would be.

That is a good question! The short answer is everyone who is a resident student does, making us the largest group on campus, but RSA has many levels to its structure.

RSA has an executive board which is made up of 10 members, then there are the 7 area governments, each with its own local board of approximately 9 members. Also, each floor or wing also has floor senators. The executive board handles most of the less exciting stuff like meeting with committees, and works with the whole campus in mind. The area governments work for their areas most of the time, but sometimes put on campus wide programs as well, and the floor senators represent just their floor or wing so that the things that they want to happen can.

The area governments are made up of a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, programmer, and publicity person just like the exec board. There is also the addition of two special members called GAM reps. They are all elected near the middle of September. The exec board has one member at each area’s meeting, but each area operates independently from the exec board. Each area also has an advisor.

The executive board facilitates the election for each area government and all are invited to participate. Anyone can run for any position and everyone should vote, but you can only participate in elections in your own area. The elections are a simple drop-down format which means that we start by voting for a president, so anyone that wants to run for president does, the winner is the president, and those that didn’t win can run for another position, and so on. There is no limit to how many times you can run.

The area governments are in some ways more important than the executive board because they can provide more specific programming for a particular area, and also because they live in the areas that they represent and can, by sheer time spent in the area, know more about. Also, it looks good on a résumé to have leadership experience that RSA provides.

Absolutely! Just by voting in an election you are getting involved. Also you can be an idea person and contribute to discussions, as well as voicing concerns. Anytime you have an idea or concern you can bring it to your floor senator, area government, GAM, or the executive board.

GAM hears concerns and also has approximately $3000 per semester to give out to organizations, RAs, area governments, and ad-hoc groups on a discretionary basis. It is a fun relaxed meeting.

That answer has two parts. The easy part is that GAM is open to everyone on campus. We like to meet new people, see new faces, and hear what you have to say, so if you are free on Tuesday nights you should come by once in a while and hang out. The longer answer is that the two GAM reps from each area government and 6 of the executive board members are the voting members of GAM. This means that if you come with a concern or a proposal for funding you won’t be eligible to vote, sorry.

You need to contact Rebecca Petner and let her know that you are planning on coming. She might ask you a few questions or could just tell you to come on a particular date. On the night of your proposal you should bring at least 20 copies of a formal written proposal that you will need to present it to GAM. If you have never prepared a proposal in the past, Rebecca is also available to help guide you through this.

Send all GAM related questions to our Executive Vice President, Rebecca Petner, at petnerr1@student.lasalle.edu.

We assure you that Rebecca is a good person to ask questions, but you can also contact the President, Mary Elizabeth Sullivan, at sullivanm5@student.lasalle.edu, or the executive board in general by emailing rsa@lasalle.edu.