"Wow" was all I could think of as I get the email from RHA President that I was being accepted to go to the biggest conference in the state, Great Lakes Affiliate College and University Residential Halls 2015! I am communications coordinator for The Towers here at Eastern Michigan University. I applied to go to a conference that was going to feature some programs done by college students just like me. I was accepted and was flabbergasted! I never got accepted to anything this big before and going was a great honor. When I got the email and read it, I was so excited to be going and experiencing something new. Each school that attended had to put on a roll call, have an electronic banner submitted, a flag displaying your institute's name and "GLACURH 2015" on it, and also we had to make cloth pins with Eastern on it and Eastern colors. We exchanged them with other schools as an easy icebreaker. The delegates that were accepted were as follows: Charlie, Katie, Sheila, Sarah, Lauren, Callie, Blake, Brianna, and Rachel. We each had a job to do that pertained to the conference. Rachel did our roll call, Brianna and I did our banner, Sarah and Sheila were in charge of making cloth pins, Blake made our display, and Charlie got our T-Shirts! We had everything turned in and it was getting close to leaving for GLACURH!
As soon as we knew it, Friday was here and it was time to start packing the vans up and getting on the road to go to Saginaw Valley State University, where the conference was being held this year. We all got to the vans and it was time to head out. It took us about two hours to get there, but the car ride there was a lot of fun with lots of sing-a-longs of music that we all loved! We finally arrived at the hotel that we had to check into to get our room keys. We then went up to our rooms and got ourselves situated. Everyone was on the second and I was the only one on the third floor, but it was all good. I got to meet my new hotel mates that were from Ferris State University. Ryan and Tony were two great guys! After we got everything done, we then headed over to Katie's room and had a small meeting of what the day was going to look like. We ate dinner, and then it was off to Saginaw Valley State University for opening ceremonies and Roll Call! We got there and it was an opportunity to trade cloth pins with different schools. All of us first delegates had to ride the pony. It was a lot of fun! We went through roll call, even though we didn't go. Just because we didn't have music for our roll call, we couldn't perform it. Did we let it ruin our weekend? NO! We continued onto going to game night. We played games and also did arts and crafts. It was time to go back to the hotel and call it a night.
Saturday morning was a great morning. Some of us delegates were going to sit in on business with the NCC and NRHH of Eastern. I got to sit in on business at 9 a.m. It was good and fun! We all went to programming that they had all day. We had to pick a program that was put on by college kids like us! Once we all went to all the programs that we wanted, they announced the top 10 programs that were the ones that were the most voted on. My hotel mate, Ryan, had a program called (trans*)parent and it was amazing! I voted for his and also the Hogwarts house-sorting program. I found out I was a Hufflepuff! We then all got dressed up fancy and went to the closing ceremonies with the closing formal dinner. It was a blast, and the food was really good. A dance followed, and socials for LGBTQA+, first-time delegates, and NRHH.
It was Sunday morning, and it was finally time to go back to Eastern. Even though there was snow on the ground, we got back to campus safely. This conference was a wonderful success! It surely was an amazing and inspirational experience that I will never forget. I have met some amazing people on the way that I now keep in touch with and it couldn't have been possible without GLACURH 2015!
