The Pillars of NRHH
LEADERSHIP, ACADEMICS, RECOGNITION, AND SERVICE
History of The Kristen Harrell Chapter of NRHH
In 1990 the UW’s NRHH chapter was founded by Ann Turkey, the National Communications Coordinator for RHSA at the time, and Gretchen Lorahammer. Lorahammer worked hard to get the chapter established and up and running, and so we were named the Gretchen Lorahammer Chapter because of her great work. However, because of graduation and inevitable officer turnover, the chapter was unable to sustain the strength it had in its early years. In 1997, Kristin Harrell was inducted and revitalized the chapter, which was all but dead. Since then, we have been the Kristin Harrell chapter and have been working to continually grow more and more active with service and recognition projects, along with social and academic events. From day one, the UW NRHH chapter has been devoted to improving on campus living by providing resources to leaders and chances to give back to the community.
What is the National Residence Hall Honorary?
The National Residence Hall Honorary is the only nationwide organization that exclusively recognizes leaders in the residence halls; it is also considered the recognition branch of the National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH), Inc. The opportunity to have a chapter is a service of NACURH, Inc. designed to give local, regional and national recognition to students making outstanding contributions to their campus and residence halls. NACURH firmly believes in the value of student involvement in residence hall life through community service, community building, advocacy and educational programming.
Realizing the value of participation, leaders have contributed vast amounts of their personal time in an effort to make their own college experiences more meaningful to them. This effort not only benefits them, it benefits their campus and entire residence hall system at their school as well. NRHH exists to honor these leaders. They work hard and all too often go unnoticed without even so much as a thank you. That is the fundamental purpose of an NRHH Chapter.
What we do now!
At the University of Washington our NRHH Chapter does a number of monthly events that are meant to apply all of our pillars into the daily lives of our members. The one thing NRHH is probably best known for is the OTM Awards. Anybody (NRHH member or non-member) on campus can nominate somebody (NRHH member or not) for an Of The Month award. These awards recognize different groups, individuals, and programs for their outstanding contributions to our community. In addition, our chapter recognizes a different group in the Residence Halls such as the Custodial Staff and the Office Assistants each month.
Another huge part of NRHH is service. Each month we sponsor a different community service event. Often these projects are open for our members as well as anybody else who wants to volunteer. This year we have done events such as MLK Day of Service where we went to sort chidlren's clothing at East Side Baby Corner. Most recently we hosted a field day for 8th grade 4H kids on campus. We talked about composting, leadership, and showed them some of the great things about the University of Washington campus and community. Finally, one of the coolest programs NRHH has done this year is the Cranes for Children project. Different groups within the Residence Halls folded paper cranes in order to reach our goal of folding 1000. Based on a Japanese legend, if you fold 1000 cranes you can make a wish. So, NRHH folded over 1000 cranes to donate to the Seattle Children's Hospital.