Last year in his election speech, Jarrod Scherle promised to take the Residence Hall Association to new levels.

With the first RHA meeting of the semester on Thursday, the pre-engineering major said, he’s devoted to fulfilling this vow with a slate of plans targeted at increasing RHA’s presence on campus.

Scherle has been involved with RHA for the past two semesters. He was RHA secretary before becoming president and is excited about the prospects of this semester.

He said he believes RHA can do a better job of getting information to students about events it is sponsoring. He wants to make students more aware of what RHA stands for and what it provides.

Last year, Scherle said he felt RHA did not advertise enough. As a result, students were not as aware of events as they could have been, he said. The campaign to better inform students this semester began before classes started.

Pens and brochures were placed in dorm rooms and handed out to students during move-in.

The goal to better inform campus will not stop there. Scherle said RHA will use posters, brochures and various other media to inform students of RHA activities this semester.

This is one of the issues to be discussed during the weekly RHA meetings, the first of which will take place at 5 p.m. Thursday in the basement of Andrews Hall. Weekly meetings will take place in various different locations across campus, but will always be held at the same time and on the same day, Scherle said.

One program, which Scherle said will be discussed, is the upcoming event EIU Squares. The group will discuss the best ways to get prominent members of the administration to participate in the program. Ashley Hoogstraten, RHA program director, will speak specifically about the EIU Squares.

President William Perry and other administrators are slated to participate in the event, which will be trivia about Eastern’s history. “It’s like Hollywood Squares with an Eastern twist,” Scherle said.

Scherle said the meeting will also feature two other guest speakers discussing other student affairs: Student Body President Cole and Hannah Plevka, RHA secretary.

Scherle said he hopes students participate more in RHA this year and welcomes any who wish to attend Thursday’s meeting.