Students seek Goose the duck and find the Residence Hall Association’s hoped-for future

RHA's mascot, Goose. Photo by Sofie Szigeti.

In early March, the Residence Hall Association (RHA) released a statement to its Instagram followers to look out for its duck mascot, Goose. If students solved riddles and found the mascot hiding in plain sight, they would have a chance to win a prize.

Throughout the week of March 9 to 13, both RHA and Hall Council were in charge of “Seek & Find” activities, during which students were encouraged to look around campus and in dorm halls, where riddles lay in wait. Examples of these riddles included trivia, word scrambles and finding hidden objects. By finding and then solving these riddles, students had a chance to win prizes. 

Each day saw a different scavenger-hunt-esque activity. The week ended with the “Final Quackdown” on Friday, a day-long event which saw students solving “case files” every hour in order to track down the missing stuffed animal Goose. The day wrapped up with an after-party. 

The winners of the Final Quackdown (from left to right): Lindsay Perez ('28), Conor Vahey ('28) and Anya Olsson ('28) on March 13, 2026. Photo by Sofie Szigeti.

The planning for the event started early in the semester. Throughout February, the board of directors figured out what prizes to buy, created the riddles and decided on the locations that the riddles would lead them to. 

RHA directors Julian Bullwinkel (’28), Sacha Des Pres (’28), Maria Alcantar (’28) and Griffin were in charge of writing the riddles, which Des Pres remarked was a fun exercise in creativity. Rodney Gray (’26) was the main creator of the “Final Quackdown” and wrote the storyline and case files and put up the clue posters around campus. Sydney Bell (’28) was in charge of social media and graphics and made sure everything was advertised accordingly on Instagram. 

The big theme of the event was RHA’s mascot Goose. Gray stated that this event is the first to centralize Goose, even though he has existed as a mascot for around a decade.

Bullwinkel said the RHA is pushing for more recognizability on campus. “A lot of people have heard of RHA but they either don’t know what we do or don’t know how to get involved, so Goose is also helping us get that recognition,” he said.

Des Pres said another one of the event’s goals was to “see students engaging on campus with RHA events and to create a culture of community where everyone has something in common to be excited about.”

RHA is entirely funded by student housing payments, so Alcantar said she believes it's important for “students to have fun in their residence halls and interact with each other and for RHA to host these events as relationship building,” in order for students to get the most out of their money.

Goose and Seek and Find Week are examples of how RHA has shifted its goals more directly toward creating an involved community. Griffin, the new RHA advisor who began her role this spring semester, is advocating for RHA’s renewed vision. 

Griffin felt that Seek and Find Week was very successful because there was a big turnout. For example, the Eastside Color Hunt brought in over 300 submissions of color collages. Students from each dorm hall were encouraged to take pictures of a specific color and put them together as a collage to turn in. She also said that RHA has gained a large amount of followers on Instagram and had an increase in students coming into the housing office to collect prizes. 

Griffin wants RHA to be associated with three words: advocacy, education and celebration.

“What I learned from working in RHA is that living on campus is a remarkable experience,” she said. “RHA is about helping students feel connected to the campus space. We want students to feel like they’re in a safe space, that they’re learning and that they’re socially engaging. We celebrate the vast diversity that’s here on our campus through different types of events.” 

Griffin hopes that RHA can expand its services in the future and that the organization can host three or four “iconic” events that continue every year.

With this future comes change. Gray noted how before, planning for events like these used to be done by the director of programming, but for Seek and Find Week all the student leaders were deeply involved. RHA plans on switching a few positions and have all directors directly participate in planning for events.

“This event is the introduction of what to expect from RHA in the future,” Gray said.