Residence Halls Association

In the United States, a Residence Halls Association (RHA) is a student-run university residence hall governing body. It is usually (but not always) the parent organization for individual hall governments. Their function is similar to a student government, except that most of their activities pertain to on-campus living. Most RHAs are either subordinate to or a division of their student governments — however a few are independent and relatively equal. Many residence hall associations were created at campuses across the US in the early twentieth century. RHA is the largest student-run organization of its kind in the world.

Many Residence Halls Associations are primarily concerned with programming activities for residents and providing financial and planning support to other entities (such as Resident Advisors/Assistants, Hall Councils, or other groups associated with campus housing). Examples of these programs may include:

Sometimes RHAs are also involved in resident issues on campuses. Often, RHAs deal with concerns about things such as hall visitation hours, hall security, hall safety, building services (repairs and upgrades), and general hall environment. Some organizations also have authority to vote on legislative policy changes on their campuses while other organizations remain in advisory, support, or non-involvement capacities regarding campus and housing policies.

RHAs are generally structured with an executive board that leads the organization and a general assembly of hall councils and occasionally other hall-based groups. Each hall council is considered the hall government for the hall they represent. In most cases there is one hall council per residence hall, however smaller halls are sometimes joined together to serve as one unified body and larger halls are sometimes broken down into smaller units.

Many RHAs are affiliated with the National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH), a student-run nonprofit which coordinates communication among RHAs and hosts a national conference, and local conferences through regional subsidiaries. Affiliated RHAs have one member who serves as a National Communications Coordinator (NCC), responsible for communication with the regional and national associations as well as other RHAs.

A number of sub-regional associations also exist that have no direct association with NACURH, such as TACURH in Tennessee, hosting their own independent sub-regional conferences and coordinating inter-school communication. Some schools in such areas dual affiliate.

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