The Residence Hall Association filled more than three-quarters of hall council seats during last week’s election, a nine percent jump from last year’s race, which RHA leaders attribute to increased outreach at the semester’s onset.

Starting last Monday at noon, 160 students competed to fill 100 hall council positions in the RHA’s annual races — about a 27 percent rise in candidates compared to 2023 — with students voting Thursday through Saturday on their picks for advocacy and programming leaders in the mini-government representing each of GW’s 25 residence halls. RHA President Andrew Levin said the association upped its outreach during the first few weeks of the semester by attending more than a dozen events, including tabling at first-year move-in and the Buff and Blue Kickoff, which he said likely contributed to the uptick in candidates. 

“It’s definitely nice to see the enthusiasm from people running,” Levin said. “I can’t say anything for sure, but I’d like to think that all of the events that we have attended over the first couple weeks of school have made a difference.”

Students vied for president, communications chair, programming chair and finance chair positions in their respective residence halls. The RHA dropped the vice president role in 2023 to reduce redundancy and allow hall council members to take more active roles in the body’s decision-making processes. 

Each elected leader will play a role in organizing community events and advocating for hall improvements like accessibility, facilities and safety, Levin said. 

“We want people to not just put on events, even though that’s a lot of what we do and is extremely important, we also want to equally emphasize that advocacy perspective,” Levin said.  

This election cycle, 24 seats across the residence halls weren’t filled, a drop from last year’s 34 vacancies.

Levin said he plans to offer vacant seats to residents who ran for a different position in their hall but lost because the positions’ responsibilities overlap. He said, for example, if a student running for president came in second but the finance chair position in their hall was still open, RHA leaders would offer the second-place presidential candidate the finance chair position. He said the method is effective in filling vacancies because these students have already shown interest in participating in RHA. 

Levin added that hall councils will also work to appoint students to fill remaining vacancies after the positions are offered to everyone who vied for an RHA position. He said to fill a vacancy, the other council members would appoint a resident to fill the position and vote on the appointee. 

“I think we’re going to be able to fill the whole hall councils,” Levin said.

RHA Director of Communications Jacob Wilner said he spoke with about 500 people to encourage them to join RHA in the first few weeks of school at University events like the Mount Vernon Campus pool party, with the goal of raising the number of students running for council positions. He said he told students within RHA they can hold events and advocate for their hall’s needs.

“These hall council members have had to become friends with everyone in their hall council or hall and figure out what issues they might have or what’s stressing them out about living in that hall,” Wilner said.

To campaign, students hung posters on the designated flier boards in their halls and used personal Instagram accounts to broaden their platform — strategies in accordance with the RHA’s 2024-2025 elections guide, which the association developed. Some candidates in first-year residence halls held debates in community spaces, including one on Wednesday between the two candidates running for Potomac House president, which about 30 students attended.

Julia Yam, a first-year majoring in political science, said she decided to run for president of Thurston Hall — a race she did not win — after she discovered she had showered in a Thurston bathroom with a hidden camera, which she reported to her community coordinator. After Yam reported the camera, she said officials sent an email to Thurston and Mitchell Hall residents explaining GW Police Department officers found a camera “placed surreptitiously” in a second-floor Thurston bathroom earlier this month. 

She said she ran to request that officials increase the number of security guards present at the Thurston entrance and push for security guards to be more vigilant. Yam said Thurston has one security officer at a time who she noticed is typically “very not attentive.” 

“There's been many security issues, so I've been very active in that already,” Yam said. “It’s something that I’m passionate about.”

First-year Nathan Arst won the Thurston Hall presidential election.

Hayden Rometty, a sophomore majoring in political communication, ran for president in Lafayette Hall — a race which he did not win — because he was “upset” at the administration for switching the residence hall from a first-year to a sophomore dorm. He said Lafayette is not “accommodating” to the second-year experience because it is one of three second-year residence halls without private kitchens, and he said he wants to advocate for officials to upgrade the hall’s sole communal kitchen and to eventually increase the number of kitchens in the hall. Officials plan to eliminate kitchens in FSK Hall, a sophomore dorm, over the next five years to make room for more beds.

He said there are general facility issues within the building, like that the only water fountain in the building leaks. As president, he said he wants to advocate for resolving facilities issues by initiating conversations with administrators to discuss potential upgrades to community spaces.

“I like to see if there’s some way we can coordinate with the administration to at least get some of these issues resolved,” Rometty said. 

Since living in Lafayette Hall for the past three weeks, Rometty said there have been no community events, compared to when he lived in Thurston last academic year and his community engagement advisor threw events, including serving milk and cookies or Chinese food. As president, he said he wants to work with Campus Living and Residential Education staff to plan events for students. 

“I just feel like somebody’s got to step up,” Rometty said. 

Sophomore Adam Newman won the Lafayette Hall presidential election.

Rory Quealy contributed reporting.