Members of the Residence Halls Association's General Assembly will elect the group's new president at 7 p.m. today in a public meeting in the Van Hoosen Hall lounge.
Four candidates accepted nominations from other RHA members and will be on the ballot: political science sophomore Eric Hinojosa, urban and regional planning senior Kevin Newman, premedical sophomore Samantha Williams and public administration and public policy sophomore DeAndre Wright.
Each candidate will deliver a 10-minute speech and answer questions from the assembly, before a group of 40 vote for a winner.
Hinojosa is a first-year group member and RHA's Williams Hall representative. He also has been involved with YouVote, which ran voter registration and education campaigns on campus before the presidential election, and ASMSU, MSU's undergraduate student government.
He said he would like to see ideas that RHA has discussed regarding safety turn into more concrete programs.
"One thing that the administration has picked up on is having a safety seminar be required for all freshmen coming into the university," Hinojosa said. "I'd like to see some of that come into play."
Williams also said residence hall safety is her top priority, and she would like to see changes made to keep unwanted visitors out of the dorms.
"The way the night reception program is run - we need to look at that," Williams said.
She is serving as a representative for Yakeley and Gilchrist halls this year, her first with RHA.
Newman is in his third year with RHA. He currently is the chief of staff.
He said in order to stop the flow of students to housing that is farther off campus, the university needs to keep improving the amenities it offers, such as cable options, food choices and wireless Internet access.
"So many students make a conscious decision to sit on a bus for 45 minutes to (get to) campus every day so that they can watch HBO or have a slightly better bench press," Newman said. "We need to work with University Housing to figure out why they do that."
Wright is RHA's director of treasurers and allocations. Last year, he served as treasurer of Akers Hall Government.
He said he wants to work with Residence Life to incorporate student input into the resident mentor selection process.
"A lot of people this year are saying their mentor is like a dad or mom on the floor," he said.
The winner of the election will assume the presidency in April.
Becky Carr, RHA's Landon Hall representative, said any of the candidates would make a good leader.
"I definitely feel like I have enough options," said Carr, a no-preference sophomore. "They're all really experienced people that know what they're doing."
