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.

Stetson East Dining Changes

Many students have been curious about what exactly happened in Stetson Hall East when the dining hall was closed, because it pretty much looks the same as before. Today, we found out from the people in charge of Dining Services what work was done. The list of work includes:

• Atrium flooring replacement;
• Serving line equipment improvements;
• Wall replacement;
• Building-wide bathroom renovations to reduce flooding;
• Tree cleaning (yes, the trees are real, but because it doesn't rain the leaves accumulate dust!)
• Replacement and/or cleaning of seating that was damaged;
• Detailed equipment cleaning; and
• Repainting of all walls

There were also a few other minor improvements that were made.

Shooting Near Campus

We have reports coming in via social networking / micro-blogging service Twitter that a shooting has taken place near Matthews Arena. Reports indicate that there is one victim who was transported via ambulance and one individual taken into custody by the Boston Police.

Details are not yet known, nor has any confirmation come from Northeastern about the incident. This, along with last week's two stabbings near campus, has raised the question of why students aren't getting NU Alert texts about these situations. One tweeter wrote, "I don't understand why we haven't recieved a single emergency alert from Northeastern..."

Given the question of NU Alerts, we will be looking to the University adminsitration for guidance on when they issue alerts or not, and how students can be kept more aware of what is going on around campus.

Another Stabbing in the Northeastern University Area

Fox News and The Boston Globe reported this morning about a stabbing late last night on Gainsborough Street near Northeastern University. The stabbing marks the second time in less than a week that a non-student was stabbed within just a few blocks of campus.

Boston Police spokesman Joe Zanoli confirmed that the victim was a 26-year-old male who was stabbed sometime after 11 PM on Tuesday night in the upper right part of his chest. The victim, according to Doctors at Brigham & Women's Hospital, is expected to survive the attack.

The suspect, who is wanted by police for this attack, is a clean shaven black male, age 30-35, with close-cropped black hair. The suspect was last seen wearing a white and black zip-up hooded sweatshirt with dice logos on it. The suspect is obviously to be considered armed and dangerous.

If you have any information or sight the possible suspect, please call Boston Police (617.343.4200) or Northeastern University Police (617.373.2121).

Drinking-Related Deaths on the Rise

Researchers at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism published a report this week that found out that the number of drinking-related deaths among students age 18-24 rose from 1998 to 2005 by 26.7%. Researchers also found slight increases in students driving while intoxicated and binge drinking.

Of course, such trends only go to make college students appear to be irresponsible and encourage those who want to raise the drinking age or keep it at 21 instead of going to age 18 like many other countries have.

The Resident Student Association is always looking out for ways to help discourage irresponsible drinking on-campus, and we have typically participated in Alcohol [Awareness] Week each year.

Reclaiming Fridays...

An article from Friday over at Inside Higher Ed, a website that reports on news in the world of Higher Education, discusses the concept of "Thirsty Thursdays" and how some institutions are attempting to curb the trend by scheduling more Friday morning classes or encourging departments to have more classes on Friday. The report is based off a study at Maryland's Loyola College that found that students who don't have Friday classes drank four times as much on average as students with a Friday class before 10 AM.

At Northeastern, during the Summer I and Summer I term, there are no Friday classes and in the Fall and Spring many students have Friday free of class. Do you think University's should try to "reclaim Fridays?" Post your comments and let us know.

Dining Switches Back

When the dining hall opens up at 7:00 AM, for the first time in more than a month and a half, it won't be Stetson Hall West. Stetson Hall East returns to service as the primary dining hall on-campus starting June 15th. The return of Stetson East will be dissapointing for stir-fry fans and pizza fans, but will be a welcome change for those who enjoyed Stetson West's better configuration for breakfast, ability to feature more diverse options, and Terra Ve vegatarian/vegan section.

Bias Incident Response Protocol

Northeastern made official today a new Bias Incident Response Protocol. The protocol documents how the University will respond to incidents of bias or hate on campus. The announcement comes following yesterday's tragic and high-profile act of hate at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

The full protocol can be seen on the website of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity.

The Resident Student Association, and other student groups, reviewed a draft of the protocol and provided input back in March 2009. We agreed to support the University administration in publicizing the protocol as well as the procedure for reporting incidents of racism, bias, bigotry, or hate on-campus and the new reporting form.

Updates Resume Today

NACURH 2009, lots of meetings, and the Chairman of the Housing Services Committee getting the flu (luckilly not H1N1 "Swine" Flu) resulted in the last couple weeks being dry on the blog. Look for more consistent updates to kick off starting this week.

Tweeting NACURH

Writing full blog entries can be hard during the fast pace of the NACURH [National Association of College and University Residence Halls] conference. Thus, I'll be updating about the conference via @soleynm on Twitter.

Other Northeastern students who may be tweeting from NACURH include @savannahmrose, @naegelis, @mozessw, @malloryleigh19, @brittinyrae and @pao612. Look out for the hash tag #NACURH.

For those unfamillar with Twitter, it's a micro-blogging system. Tweets can be posted from computer, mobile application, and from any cell phone via text message. Twitter allows for real-time updates of your status, news, and anything you can say in 140 characters. Anyone can sign up for free at www.Twitter.com

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.

Legislation Passes

The Resident Student Association passed legislation last night regarding the topic of trayless dining and reassessing student opinion to ensure that the right decision is made. You can read the legislation here [SC: S1-09-1]. Our plan will be to create a new survey and collect actual data, working collaboratively with other student groups. If you have any ideas, let us know.

Next Weekend: NACURH 2009

It's hard to believe that NACURH 2009 is less than a week away, but it is. Next Friday, a group of 13 will leave Boston and head out West to The University of Arizona in Tucson. We'll be representing Northeastern among other RSA/RHAs across the country, and hopefully we'll bring back some National awards to add to our institutions pride.

While there may be a couple blog posts made from out West, look to Twitter for updates as myself and several other delegates will be tweeting from our mobile phones.

The Week in Review

This week was an interesting one in terms of my role on the RSA e-board. I didn't update the blog because so much was going on!

We opened up the week with our e-board meeting where we ran down all of the ongoing projects. There's a lot of good things coming for residents, both in advocacy and outreach and programming. The RSA website had some updates made Monday, with many more to come to bring it up to date. All the missing documents for Housing Services Committee from last year will be posted, and then we'll have information about how to get even older documents. It will basically be a request system where you e-mail RSA (at) Northeastern.edu and we send you the requested documents.

On Tuesday, I took a trip with VP Rose up to Freedom, New Hampshire where we looked at Camp Cody, a possible new site for the Association's fall retreat which will offer us a significant savings in cost over our traditional retreat to the Ashland Campus. The site was very nice, with a great lake nearby. While the drive was almost 2.5 hours each way, it was worth it because we also got to enjoy some tax-free shopping! Tuesday was also the first Housing Services Committee meeting. It's not too late to join / attend. We meet next week at 6:00 pm in 336 Curry Student Center.

Wednesday was a much calmer day. Not too much to comment on, other than a meeting with the Senior RA Representative to discuss RA Training.

Thursday was a long day. On Thursday we found that our new office furniture would be coming in. We only got two hours notice, so VP Rose, VP Gagnon and I had to do a fast pack and clear job and then set everything up again once the new furniture came. The RSA Office, at 128 Stetson Hall West, has had the same layout for years. Four desks to be used by an organization with over 80 members and more than a dozen officers, Assistant Vice Presidents, and others who frequent the office as a working space. We upgraded to a total of six desks, which now gives each Vice President their own desk. We also switched to desks that provide better cable and power access for technology and gave the Vice President for Finance a bigger desk. We moved our water cooler and installed new seating to provide a more professional look. Once we clean up, I'll post some pictures.

Of course, what began Thursday was interesting. Food Advisory Committee met Thursday. From RSA, myself, AVP for Housing Services Mallory Brown, VP for Programming Brittiny-Rae Gagnon, and Cassandra Chan attended. We discussed the food preference survey results. The full results should be released by SGA soon. There was a bit of debate over the issues with the survey's question about trayless dining and the bias of the question, however. We're still working to make sure students have a choice.

Thursday wrapped up with Hall Council training. Anyone who is on a hall council and has feedback, please send it to RSA (at) Northeastern.edu and it'll help us revise for the fall.

Finally, Friday was a much calmer day for RSA, with not much activity for me.

Phishing Attempts

Once again there have been e-mails sent out trying to convince students to send e-mail with their myNEU passwords. The messages are not from Northeastern, so don't send any information out. If you have sent information to the people who sent this e-mail, change your password as soon as possible and e-mail help@neu.edu if you are unable to access your account.

So You Don't Waste the Summer on the Couch...

Due to budgetary constraints RSA TV will not be continuing after May 31, 2009.

However, Channel 117 will still be there! We're not sure how it'll be there, but it may have original content.

Check for updates on rsa.neu.edu and enjoy the last month of movies (there are some good ones).

View the schedule here.

Summer I Laundry Bucks

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had some to time to relax in the warm weather this week. This is just a reminder the your summer I laundry bucks are now available. You should have been allocated $22.50 for this half of the summer.

Blog Revamped

New session, new blog layout. We've made it a little different. Feel free to post your thoughts and comments about the new look.

Blog Downtime & Revamp

The blog has been dead the last couple weeks or so, but when Summer I semester starts up next week expect it to be more active and have plenty of updates! There also might be a better layout.

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.