It’s only a matter of time before the Iowa Legislature unanimously passes a noble resolution honoring the Northern Iowa men’s basketball team for its Missouri Valley Conference tournament title and its first NCAA tournament trip in 14 years.

The resolution won’t mean a thing at all, but that’s fine — resolutions of exaltation are just something governmental bodies do.

Something, not everything.

One of the more mystifying developments of the 2003-04 academic year has been the near-disappearance of the Inter-Residence Hall Association. While the Government of the Student Body has spent a year embroiled in tailgating, budget and health insurance controversies, IRHA has not handled anything this year of any great significance.

A check of the minutes from an IRHA Parliament meeting this year reveals a lot of talk about Free Friday Flicks, ExTRAvaganza, madrigal dinners and special meals for smart dormies and their professors.

When Department of Residence Director Randy Alexander talks, IRHA listens to the news, good or bad, about the latest rate change, building closure or staff cutback. But Alexander’s pronouncements seem to be the end of the discussion — the parliament can’t do much about room and board or employment.

The organization does do a good job distributing its funds without the melodrama of tonight’s GSB Regular Allocations. Its members are genuinely interested in addressing the plights of residence hall students. For evidence of that interest, check out the IRHA Web site, irha.us, and then compare it with www.gsb.iastate.edu, with an eye toward timeliness.

But the group could be working on so much more beyond resolutions supporting Cuffs (it seems unlikely this endorsement has really altered official ISU opinions on anything). And there’s precedent.

As recently as the 1999-2000 academic year, IRHA has:

* Established rules about what’s allowable on residence hall doors

* Created the Dining Dollar$ system

* Changed the fee schedule for Ethernet service to a per-semester basis, from per-month

* Passed effective resolutions (some are worthwhile) supporting “a safe, multicultural and alcohol-free Veishea” and opposing an Iowa Legislature bill to ban alcohol completely from the residence halls.

Admittedly, sometimes events force a body to act on items like this, and maybe nothing notable has happened to spur this year’s IRHA to action. But the body has the initiative and the ability to do more to keep improving the residence halls and making them more desirable even as more and more students choose to live off-campus each year.