I have served as a senator in the Residence Hall Association in the past. I can tell you from personal experience that changes to make the organization seem more legitimate or powerful are pointless, and that I have serious doubts as to whether RHA needs to exist at all.
Let’s start with what the Residence Hall Association’s senate actually does. In practice, I was required to show up or send someone in my place every week. At that point, there would be proposals from residence hall governments or student organizations for money. The money was almost always approved by large margins, with only one or two genuinely controversial votes the entire year.
Incidentally, the main job of the Student Government’s legislative branch is also approving funds requested by student organizations. I really don’t see why they couldn’t just pick up requests from individual residence hall governments as well and save everyone some precious time. This would also reduce confusion over where organizations need to or should go to get money approved.
I also don’t think that the student body has given RHA any sort of mandate to get stronger. Even the vastly more important Student Government struggles to fill some of the seats in its legislature. Truth be told, I’m not sure how many students even know that the RHA senate exists.
Hall governments are more important, since they plan actual events and attempt to improve resident life. I’m not saying that residence halls shouldn’t have presidents, treasurers and the like. What I am saying is that the RHA senate could transfer all of its duties to Student Government and all that would happen is that many residence hall senators would have more free time.
So while we’re talking about overhauling the RHA senate, I suggest they should seriously consider just abolishing it entirely and stop pretending that they have any more importance or relevance than they actually do.