Nine delegates from Saint Mary's Residence Hall Association (RHA) attended the Great Lakes Association of Colleges and Residence Halls conference over the weekend to participate in a competition among Midwest colleges. This year's conference was held at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Saint Mary's, along with the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, were the two finalists competing for a first place finish for programming events that have been implemented in their residence halls. Part of the competition included a presentation made by senior Whitney Ross, entitled "A League of his or her own. Wham! Women have a Mission." The Saint Mary's delegation placed second in the competition.

"Wisconsin La Crosse has 12 residence halls and we only have four. They had a lot more programming because they have so many residence halls," Ross said.

Ross said that Saint Mary's diversity within RHA has grown in the past year, especially with the new InterCultural Living community started this year, but that there are still more improvements that Saint Mary's RHA can make.

"One thing we were criticized for was that we don't have gay and lesbian representation in our association. We are working on opening up RHA to more student diversity," Ross said. "I think RHA and [Student Diversity Board] should work together."

Ross plans to re-submit her presentation at the sub-regional conference in the spring. The sub-regional competition only includes colleges and universities from Indiana.

"I think Saint Mary's needs to be recognized for its dramatic improvement over the past year," Ross said.

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