The Residence Hall Association at Southeast Missouri State University has had new officers elected for the 2013-2014 academic year.

The new RHA officers are Devin Melton as president, Kayla Kammermeyer as vice president, Preston King as treasurer, Mercedes McWilliams as the public relations chair, Janay Wilkins as secretary, Sarah Procter as the national communications coordinator, Kaitlyn Bright as the national communications coordinator in training and Naomi Bevill as the programming communications coordinator.

RHA is a student organization designed to be the voice for students who live in residence halls on campus. RHA is also designed to make sure that students are active in the university and residence life policy-making process, encourage cooperation between the various residence halls on campus, promote student development and residence hall issues and help improve physical, social, educational and cultural standards of living on campus.

"The elections are by choice," King said. "You fill out an application of the positions you would like to run for, which is reviewed by the current executive board. Then, the general body decides, ultimately, who will fill that position."

Melton said he plans on doing things a little differently than in the past. He also has some ideas that he wants to bring to RHA during his term as president.

"Some ideas I hope to implement are a master list of anything that we do in the organization," Melton said. "I want to utilize Facebook a lot better, just for minor communication things within our committees. I want to possibly have some committees completely online. Just try to use this technological age to our advantage."

Melton plans to focus on a few big issues within RHA during his term as president of the organization.

"One of our biggest issues is communication among the reps," Melton said. "We plan on addressing that with a few different ideas, one of them being we're having a representative retreat at the beginning of next semester, so that they will get all of their formalized training done."

One of the main goals for the RHA officers is getting more students involved with the organization.

"We would like to really come up with programs that students would like to attend," King said. "We want things on campus that students look forward to going to, get excited about and that makes their time more enjoyable."