While many campus leaders are preparing for Student Government elections, the Residence Hall Association will not be having elections this year.
RHA presidential and vice presidential elections would have taken place last week, but no one filed to run against the current RHA president and vice president.
Some students feel the filing dates to run for their offices were under-publicized.
In a letter to the editor last week, Matthew Auten, a biochemistry senior, said he was surprised there would be no RHA elections this year.
“The filing date for RHA was not announced to the campus by fliers, banners, broadcast e-mail or in any other media,” he said in the letter. “As a concerned and active student at LSU, I am more than a little suspicious of this blatant oversight.”
According to RHA Elections Commissioner David Dessauer, only the current members of the RHA community councils and the RHA executive staff were notified of the filing date.
“We announced the dates to file at our RHA meeting and also sent our community council members an e-mail about the upcoming elections,” he said.
Dessauer said filing was restricted to students on the community council and executive staff members for a reason.
“We are trying to develop RHA into a better organization, and in order to do that, it is imperative we have experienced leaders,” he said. “Students who have had direct contact and experience with producing RHA’s programming and events have an idea as to what procedures have to be followed and the responsibilities the president has.”
Dessauer said he encouraged the community council members and executive staff to give strong consideration to running for these offices.
“I told them if they ever had any questions about the position to feel free to ask me, and I would be happy to give them information they needed,” he said. “But it would have been highly inappropriate for me to nudge members and tell them to file. The opportunity was open to these students, but no one wanted to run.”
Dessauer said the requirement to have served on the community council or executive council was only for presidential candidates.
“This was not a requirement for vice presidential candidates,” he said. “But their presidential running mate did have to follow this rule.”
Dessauer said, as elections commissioner, he forms an elections commission that makes up rules and guidelines for filing and oversees the election process.
“I met with advisors in Grace King and all over campus to ensure that this decision would be beneficial to RHA and the students it serves,” he said.
Dessauer said in the end it came down to an interpretation of the constitution.
“The constitution contains the requirements for people wishing to run for president, but the elections commission can institute rules to guide the elections process,” he said. “This rule does not violate the constitution because there is nothing in the constitution that says there cannot be restrictions placed on persons who wish to run for president.”
Katherine Gouner, a mass communication freshman, said she supports the rule for presidential candidates.
“A person who is not active in RHA does not have experience with the inner workings of this organization,” she said.
Gouner, a senator for East Laville, is a member of the RHA community council.
“In our last RHA meeting, members brought up concerns with the constitution, but for clarification’s sake, not because anyone wanted to run against the current officers,” she said. “We had plenty of time and notification to run for these offices. I did not feel a need to run against our current officers. I think they did a great job.”
The current officers are President Nathan Boudreaux and Vice President Doug Fields. Because they ran uncontested, the pair will remain in the top two RHA positions.
“I would be glad to meet with any person who is concerned about the RHA elections or how they can become more involved,” Dessauer said.
Dessauer said the rule was not made to keep interested students out of RHA, and all campus residents can run for community council positions in the fall.