Members of the National Residence Hall Honorary club find themselves frustrated at the end of this semester due to lack of acknowledgement from the University community.
According to senior and Vice President of Recognition, Joseph Pastino, the 23-member club is a national organization that recognizes the top 1 percent of student leaders living on campus.
Pastino said that NRHH meets once a month to nominate Seton Hall community members and groups who stand out and deserve to be recognized. According to Pastino, the categories are Adviser of the Month, Student of the Month, Program of the Month, Organization of the Month and Spotlight of the Month.
The members then vote, and the winners receive a custom-made poster as well as an official NRHH certificate.
"All winner names are then submitted to the national organization to compete for regional and national recognition and at the end of the academic year, all winners are eligible to win an ‘Of the Year' award at the Student Government Awards in May," Pastino said.
Alpha Sigma Phi was the winner of this month's Organization of the Month award. Senior and 2010-2011 President of Seton Hall's chapter, Andrew Felbinger, said that he did not know about the organization before the fraternity won.
"Before winning the award this past month, I had seen some friends wearing NRHH letters on clothing but I never knew much about the organization," Felbinger said. "As a senior who has been a part of many organizations around campus, I was pretty surprised when I was notified Alpha Sigma Phi won the award because I never knew about NRHH or the award."
To become more noticed on campus, Felbinger made a suggestion.
"NRHH does a lot of great things on campus but they need to promote themselves and get there name out there," he said. "As an example for all of their ‘organization of the month' awards they could do something with the recipient organization to help spread the word not only about the award but about NRHH and their mission."
Pastino said that one of the reasons why NRHH is not well known around campus is because they are not a programming organization.
"We are a very small organization, and our primary role is to recognize student leaders and outstanding contributions to the campus community," Pastino said. "We don't typically hold events or programs."
Pastino wishes that NRHH was more well-known and recognized on campus.
"It's very frustrating that we're not because we strive to recognize excellence on campus, so it is demoralizing when people win an award from us, yet they have no idea who we are or why they are being recognized by NRHH," Pastino said.
Senior Marlena Gordon said that she has known about the organization for most of her time at Seton Hall.
"I remember a while back hearing some of my classmates talking about NRHH, so I looked it up on the school's website to learn more about it," Gordon said. "I think it's awesome that they honor so many hard-working people, but unfortunately a lot of their work goes unrecognized. It seems like the only real way to get the scoop about NRHH is from word of mouth."
Senior and President of NRHH Gregory D'Amato explained his disappointment with NRHH's lack of recognition on campus.
"I wouldn't call it frustrating that we are unknown on campus, but it is disappointing. We serve to recognize and appreciate the residents here on campus as well as the organizations and advisers that help them function and reach their full potential," D'Amato said. "This message goes unnoticed by a majority of students and limits the potential for people to be appreciated for the job that they do to affect the campus in a positive way."
D'Amato explained that the NRHH doesn't typically work with other on-campus clubs or organizations.
"Other organizations are also unaware of our presence on campus, which limits our co-sponsorship of events," D'Amato said. "I do not know any other club that is as unknown as ours."
Pastino said NRHH is funded through the Department of Housing and Residence Life but neither he nor D'Amato wished to further discuss funding.
Kimberly Bolognini can be reached at kimberly.bolognini@student.shu.edu.
