Piketoberfest Today!

If you've wondered why there haven't been blog posts for a couple days, it's been due to people supporting a high amount of RSA recruitment efforts and programs. Thursday we had several hall council information sessions and an activities fair table. Friday we had two programs, and today is Piketoberfest. Join RSA on the Centennial Commons at 3 PM for free food and a free concert by State Radio & Longwave. Prior to the concert, RSA is helping prepare and setup pretty much all day. Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/rsalive for updates.

Last Day of Move-In

Today's the last day of move-in, and if everything runs as well as it did the last few days, this will be one of the most successful move-in weeks ever, especially given that this is the largest move-in ever with the addition of International Village.

There are plenty of Welcome Week events coming up, including Duck Tours tomorrow at 5:00 PM, so check out www.northeastern.edu/welcomeweek for more information or stop by the Welcome Week booth on the Krentzman Quad in front of Ell Hall to learn more.

Dr. Drew Coming to Northeastern

The Office of Prevention and Education at Northeastern (OPEN), Enrollment Management & Student Affairs (EMSA), University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS), and the Resident Student Association (RSA) have worked hard over the past several months to bring Dr. Drew Pinksy, host of radio talk show Loveline, host of VH1's Celebrity Rehab, and author of The Mirror Effect: How Celebrity Narcissism is Seducing America to campus for "Sex, Drugs, & Dr. Drew."

Dr. Drew will be here on September 12th, 2009 at 7:30 PM and tickets went on sale at the Blackman ticket office in Ell Hall yesterday. There are fewer than 1000 tickets available, and they're available based on the schedule below. Tickets are just $5.

8/31-9/3 & 9/8-9/11: Box Office (Ell Hall), M/T/Th/F 12-6pm daily
9/4-9/6: Welcome Week Info Booth (Krentzman Quad), 10-5pm daily
9/7 only: Welcome Week Info Booth (CSC Indoor Quad), 12-2pm

Dr. Drew will be taking questions from students, and will also be doing a signing after the event. The Facebook event can be found here.

Free BBQ This Thursday: West Campus Surf 'n Turf

This Thursday at 7:00 PM the Resident Student Association through its Hall Councils is bringing you Surf 'n Turf, an evening of entertainment, free food, and fun right on the West Campus Quad. The event is free to all students and is paid for by your Resident Activities Fee.

Sunday Looking Good for BBQ

Sunday is looking like a great day for BBQ. While you can't smoke ribs in your residence hall or start a real grill up, you can take advantage of RSA's free trip to the Phantom Gourmet BBQ Beach Bash. We cover the tickets (normally $10) and you just have to buy the food. It's a great deal, and I'm personally planning to go and enjoy some great ribs, cold beer, and perhaps some brisket or pulled pork sandwiches. If you want to join me, simply e-mail RSA (at) Northeastern.edu to sign up.

How Can We Reach You?

On Wednesday, with President Naegeli, I attended a meeting about how we market events and other items to the student body. We're going to be working through the summer on this, and it includes the Residence Hall flyer posting policy and process. If you have any ideas about how we can best reach out to you and about flyering in the Residence Halls, let us know.

Duck My Life

RSA has been so busy, I have had little time to update the blog and the same goes for the committee members who make posts here. I did want to note that Duck My Life is today, so look out for rubber duckies on-campus and if you find one you can win a prize by going to the RSA office between 9 AM and 5 PM.

Also, today is Patriot's Day and that means it's Marathon Monday! Enjoy the day off.

Bill Nye "The Science Guy" On-Campus Tomorrow!

Ticket prices for Northeastern Students for Bill Nye the Science Guy at 7:00 PM tomorrow in Blackman have dropped to just $3. Tickets are being sold at the Studio Theater Box office (between Ell Hall and the Curry Student Center indoor quad [1st Floor]) from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm on Sunday. Additionally, at-the-door tickets will be sold at the Blackman box office, but it is highly recommended that you purchase tickets during the day to avoid long lineups. This event is sponsored by the Resident Student Association, Husky Energy Action Team, and Kappa Sigma Fraternity, and is paid for by the Student Activities Fee and Resident Activities Fee.

Human Rights Week: March 23rd to March 26th

An extension of GIVE 5, Human Rights Week was the brainchild of Invisible Children, a group that is growing in leaps and bounds on NU’s campus this year. Truly a collaborative event, representatives from many different student groups have been meeting for weeks on Thursdays to discuss how they would bring awareness to the issues affecting people around the globe. The end product is going to be a fabulous week full of educational, awareness and activism programming.

The following organizations are involved:
Invisible Children, RSA + NRHH, NUSTAND, HEAT, PSA, EWB, Globemed, Social Change through Peace Games, Intervarsity, MSinformed, Students for Choice, International Affairs Society, Project NUR and Human Trafficking Students

I hope you can encourage your fellow residents to attend the events and learn more about problems that affect our fellow global citizens. Advertisements will be going up in the residence halls this weekend and there will be some available to distribute in the RSA/NRHH office then.
The schedule is as follows:
Monday 3.23: Global Health Day-- Delectable Diseases
10 Behrakis, 6:30 pm

Tuesday 3.24: EDUCATION as a human right: "Panel of Perspective"
101 Churchill, 6:30 pm

Wednesday 3.25: SAFETY as a human right: PEACE of PIZZA
Come hear Professor Denise Horn speak on her expertise regarding safety of the body as a human right
West Addition 6pm

Thursday 3.26 SUSTENANCE as a human right
Trivia night!!! -- afterhours 8pm

THURSDAY 2-5 pm INDOOR QUAD==HUMAN RIGHTS FAIR + INITIATIVES

Please email nuhumanrights@googlegroups.com with any questions.

We hope to see you at the events!
Thanks!

Meg McCormick
Member, Housing Services Committee, RSA General Council and Husky Energy Action Team
President, National Residence Hall Honorary
megmccormick18@gmail.com

"Ubuntu speaks of the very essence of being human. It is to say, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours." We belong in a bund;e of life. We say "A person is a person through other persons." It is not,"I think therefore I am." It says rather: "I am human because I belong. I participate, I share." A person with ubuntu is open and vailable to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if the were less than who they are."
--Desmond Tutu -- "No Future Without Forgiveness"

Do It in the Dark!

Each year, the Husky Energy Action Team works incredibly hard starting in September to plan “Do It In the Dark” (No, it is not a Sex Week event!), an environmentally sustainable initiative combining programming with activism and education. It is co-sponsored by the Resident Student Association and really important for the University the environment and your tutition bill! The focus of the program is energy conservation, hence the encouragement to shut off lights/ water/ dishwasher, etc whenever possible. This is a competition between residence halls to lower the overall amount of energy expended so make signs and encourage your fellow residents!

You can see the list of events at http://www.heat.neu.edu/events. Some of the highlights include Bill Nye The Science Guy [3/22/2009, 7 PM], a showing of Everything's Cool [3/19/2009, 7 PM, 105 Shillman], and the Student Body President Debate [Monday, 7pm, 10 Behrakis] in which our own Vice President of Housing Services, Matthew Soleyn, will be speaking. If you are interested in helping out, send an e-mail to heat@neu.edu. They are looking for Residence Hall stormers to advertise in the residence halls. The competition for Do It In the Dark kicks off this Friday and the winning hall gets free massages for a day during finals week as well as being entered into a raffle for prizes!

Tips:
• Make signs or post-it notes for next to the light switches to remind guests and roommates to turn off the lights.
• Unplug appliances like coffee makers or cell-phone chargers when you are not using them- this helps save little amounts of energy.
• Turn the water off while washing your hair or brushing your teeth, then back on to rinse.
• Wash clothes in cold water.
• Air dry clothes instead of using a dry cycle (saves laundry bucks too!)

Thanks!
Meg McCormick
Member, Housing Services Committee, RSA General Council and Husky Energy Action Team
President, National Residence Hall Honorary
megmccormick18@gmail.com

Survey Up!

Please take our survey about issues affecting on-campus students. We hope to use the results to better advocate for the students living in the residence halls.

Footloose Is Coming to Campus

The latest press release to come to the Housing Services Committee is about a musical taking place on December 12th and 13th in the Fenway Center. See below for details:

December 2, 2008- Kick off your Sunday shoes Northeastern! The Great White Way, Northeastern University's student directed musical theater group presents Footloose December 12th and 13th at 7:30 pm in the Fenway Center located on St. Stephen’s street.

Footloose written by Dean Pitchford with lyrics by Tom Snow is a musical based on a movie of the same name. The musical follows the story of the main character Ren as he moves from Chicago to a small town named Bomont where dancing is outlawed. The musical includes a host of popular 80's hits including the title song "Footloose," the upbeat "Let's Hear it for the Boy," and the powerful "I need a Hero." Footloose is directed by Peter Karpathakis with Katie Fulton from NuDANCO as the choreographer. The Great White Way held auditions for the musical in September and has been working with the cast of 35 since then. Prior productions include Once Upon a Mattress and Urinetown: the Musical.

Tickets are on sale at the Northeastern box office and must be purchased at the box office before the show. $5 with NU ID, $10 without.

Lance Bass On-Campus Wednesday

For just $10 you could have the opportunity to see former N'Sync pop star Lance Bass right here at Northeastern University. Tomorrow at 7:00 PM in Blackman Auditorium, Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority is presenting Lass Bass. Bass will be speaking "candidly about his childhood, his astonishing experiences growing up in one of the biggest bands in the world, his shock and frustration at the band's eventual dissolution, and his subsequent career, including his four months in Russia, training to become a cosmonaut." Bass will also be discussing life as a homosexual. ASL interpretation will be provided and a book signing will take place after the event for Bass' book Out of Sync. Tickets are on sale at the Blackman Box office, limit 2 per Northeastern University Husky Card.

The End

The Husky Hunt has ended. While the points won't be counted up for a while, it seems that almost everyone's a winner in terms of having a good time throughout the event whether competing or staffing. This will be one of the experiences that I'll remember the most from my time here at Northeastern, and I'm sure many others will as well.

Update from the Husky Hunt

It's past 4:30 in the morning here on a Saturday. The sun will rise in less than two hours. At this point, many people have been up for nearly 24 hours already, and teams have been out for over eight hours. For some, the lack-of-sleep is compounded by late nights over the past week preparing for the Husky Hunt. I thought being up until 1:45 AM working on constituent concerns was late -- but the Husky Hunt Subcommittee was up until past 3:00 AM on numerous nights, working hard. Even better, all of us working on the event either have classes or cooperative education as we are all full-time undergraduates at Northeastern. Nevertheless, the Husky Hunt has remained a fun event for both staff and participants. The event has become an institution here at Northeastern, and it is an institution that students truly look forward to and want to be a part of.

On a Housing Services note, it's amazing how many RSA constituents have passed through the Stetson West lobby and raised concerns about topics. Some items brought up include Outtakes creating a foul scent in Stetson West, laundry machines stealing money, and inadequate lighting in some of the residence halls. The Housing Services Committee will work to improve the halls and hopefully rectify these issues.

Finally, I want to just commend the Husky Hunt Subcommittee and everyone here else helping out tonight.

The Husky Hunt

Quod incepimus conficiemus -- What we have begun, we shall finish.

November 7, 2008 will go down in the history of the Resident Student Association as the third year of the Husky Hunt -- the year that will truly make the Husky Hunt not just another program, but an institution at Northeastern University. The Hunt kicks off at 8:00 PM, but work has been taking place for weeks within the Husky Hunt Subcommittee. With it being crunch time, RSA members were up as late as 2:45 AM last night working to be ready for tonight's 24-hours of fun. It's sure to be interesting.

Voting is November 4th & There is No Tax

There have been a couple rumors going around campus about voting in the General Election. These rumors have been spread by both the far-left and the far-right in an effort to disenfranchise college students and other citizens.

The first rumor is that because of the high number of people expected to vote, that they have extended voting across two days, November 4th and November 5th, and that November 5th is a better day to vote because there will be shorter lines. This is not true! Voting takes place on November 4th. If you show up on November 5th, you'll be a day too late and out of luck.

The second rumor is that voting isn't worth the $40 voting tax. This is also not true! The 24th Amendment specifically forbids poll taxes:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

On a related note, the last NUVotes event will be will be an election watch party held in afterHOURS at 7:00 PM on Tuesday.

Vote for MOHA; King & Queen

In the Resident Student Association, we encourage students to vote. Whether it's voting for the President of the United States of America, voting for the President of the Student Body, or voting for Homecoming King & Queen and the Mayor of Huntington Avenue, voting is a great way to have your voice heard. That said, the Resident Student Association has endorsed Savannah Rose for Homecoming Queen, Topher Nelson for Homecoming King, and Matthew D. Soleyn for Mayor of Huntington Avenue. You can vote for them on myNEU. Additionally, there are a few events this week that are free to attend. The first is Meet the Court, which is tonight at 8:00 PM in the Curry Student Center ballroom. Second is The Mayor's Debate at 6:30 PM tomorrow in the Curry Student Center ballroom. Third, Thursday at 6:30 PM there is a Homecoming Pep Rally on the North Campus Quad between Speare and Stetson East. All three events are free to students.

See The Capitol Steps

The Capitol Steps are coming to campus on Monday as a part of NUVotes. The show is just $5, and it will be at 8:00 PM in Blackman. You can get tickets at the Blackman box office in Ell Hall. For more information, you can visit NUVotes.com.

Presentation on the Proposal for a Fraternity and Sorority Life Leadership Living Learning Community

Last night at the General Council meeting, there was a presentation on the Fraternity and Sorority Life Leadership Living Learning Community that is being proposed. If you missed it, you can see it here in PDF format.

Feel free to post questions and comments.