Over 1,000 Northwestern students live across 10 undergraduate residential colleges on campus.

Each residential college offers different programming for residents. The Residential College Board coordinates cross-college events and serves as a resource to the 10 residential college presidents.

Starting with the 2026-27 term, Residential and Academic Engagement will require RCB members to live on campus. It also applies to leadership for GREEN House, a residential hall focused on sustainability.

The rule change has impacted the makeup and electoral process of the next RCB, slated to begin its term in Spring Quarter 2026.

“This new requirement, we have found, has made finding applicants a little difficult,” said McCormick and Communication junior Evan Weitzman, whose term as RCB president concludes at the end of Winter Quarter.

RCB consists of seven members: a president and six vice presidents. Its Fullboard includes the seven RCB officers and 10 residential college presidents. Each officer’s term lasts from Spring Quarter after their election to the end of Winter Quarter the following year.

By the time the latest round of RCB applications closed earlier this week, just two students applied for the upcoming term, Assistant Director of Area Engagement and RCB adviser Rick Cazzato Jr. said.

The change comes after RAE enacted a rule effective in the 2025-26 term requiring members of each residential college’s own executive boards to live in their respective buildings.

Director of Residential and Academic Engagement Amanda Mueller said the decision was the last step of a process to ensure all residential student organization leaders live on campus.

“To lead a residential space, you should also be residential,” Mueller said.

Mueller said she noticed student leaders who lived off campus spent less time in the spaces they served, resulting in a disconnect between board members’ and residents’ experiences. Boards planned events, for instance, unaware that they clashed with residents’ exam dates.

Practical problems — like non-residential executive board members losing access to buildings during Wildcat Welcome — affected programming for first-year students in particular, Mueller said.

“Being a student leader is recognizing, ‘I’m not just coming to host programs or facilitate events,’” Cazzato said. “It’s those common interactions that you’re having day to day.”

According to the RCB Constitution, traditional eligibility allows sitting RCB Fullboard members to run for president and any residential college executive board members to run for the six vice presidential roles.

It also states elections must be completed before Week Seven of Winter Quarter and before residential college board elections. Weitzman said the initial round of RCB applications for the 2026-27 term were due January.

This winter, no one applied under the traditional criteria, Weitzman said.

As a result, he said, RCB ultimately extended the application deadline to March. The board also expanded presidential eligibility to anyone who had served on a residential college executive board and vice presidential eligibility to anyone who had lived in a residential college.

Communication sophomore Tallulah Sarig, the outgoing president of Shepard Residential College, said she didn’t consider applying for RCB. Having long heard from upperclassmen about the benefits of living off-campus, she said she wanted that experience.

“I love my res college,” she said. “And also, I’m ready to move on.”

As Shepard president, Sarig is a member of Fullboard, which has allowed presidents to seek advice from each other since the 1980s. Its events include RCB Formal in the fall, Quiz Bowl in the winter and Field Day in the spring. 

Still, Sarig said many residents do not understand RCB’s function. Some, she said, may not know the board exists at all.

“Most people don’t interact with RCB, aside from a few events a year,” Weinberg senior and Hobart House President Allie Hill said.

Hill has served on Hobart’s executive board since her first-year. She’s also lived in the same Hobart room those four years.

At one point, Hill said running for RCB crossed her mind. But due to a rule prohibiting students from holding more than one residential services position at a time, she opted to remain on Hobart’s board.

“I love RCB, and I love having the whole campus res college community,” Hill said. “But in terms of the people that I see every day, and in terms of the events that I’m most likely to attend just because of proximity, Hobart is going to win every time.”

For now, Cazzato said the board will move forward with the two applicants. He said they will discuss if they still want to fill all seven positions.

Hill said she hopes to see RCB continue. She just doesn’t know if the new rules incentivize students to contribute.

“It’s a high ask to ask people to live on campus just to be on this board,” Hill said.

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