The Residence Hall Association had record numbers for Rock the Hall, a week of events to welcome students back to campus.
"Dance in the Dark" on Monday was the first event and brought in more than 200 students. RHA also saw higher attendance at its game night and at the dive-in movie night.
Changing some of the events for this year's Rock the Halls caused the increase in the number of participants.
"The only thing we kept from last year was the dive-in movie," Chelsea Wheeler, president of RHA, said. "We totally made [the week of events] over and we made it our own."
Wheeler said more students saw the opportunity to help the organization after going to some of the events.
Ryan Coleman, a representative for Studebaker West, said the experience of working with the RHA to put the events together was good for him.
"It was different when you are in something like this," he said. "In high school, it wasn't the same experience. You are on a smaller scale when you are in high school and here you have to to think that not everyone like the same things."
This was the first time Coleman helped put together an event for RHA. He became interested in joining the group after meeting the executive board at the activity fair.
Coleman said the events put together by RHA were something he was interested in as a student.
"The ‘Dance in the Dark' was by far the best planned event on campus in these two weeks," he said. "There was everything that a party has except there was no alcohol."
The RHA week of events not only had something for students to do at night, but it also provided a safe environment for them, Coleman said.
"I thought everything was fun because we could get out of class, go home and hang out at night without having a hangover in the morning," he said.
Like Coleman, the RHA had more students asking how they could be part of the group, Wheeler said.
"We had a lot of people come up and ask ‘How can we join?'" she said. "A lot of other people went to the events now knowing the RHA had put them on and got interested in joining."
Wheeler said the RHA is now focusing on finding more people that will help them in events. Other events this year include "A Date Auction" and "Hall Wars," which take place in the Spring Semester.
The RHA is extending the deadline to Sept. 9 for students to turn in raffle tickets from the week. Prizes include a DVD player, a wireless computer mouse and an iPod nano. The raffle will take place at the RHA office.
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