The traditional Yell Like Hell was to have some added opportunities for residence hall and other organization involvement this year, but the changes didn’t go as planned.

Ellen Dunseth, program coordinator for alumni services, said the plan was for residence hall floors, clubs or organizations to come as a team an hour before the first Yell Like Hell competition, held Sunday at the Jacobson Athletic Building, and choose an improvisation bag with a theme. They would then have an hour to put together a skit of their choosing. As their only rule, they would have to include the Iowa State fight song in their skit.

Unfortunately, none of the groups showed up.

“We had two groups registered and they both ended up canceling,” Dunseth said.

Laura Luymes, Homecoming chair for Yell Like Hell, said she was a little disappointed in the turnout.

“I was pretty pumped for this and I thought it was a really fun opportunity,” said Luymes, senior in marketing. “I had a jungle-themed improv bag and a ’70s bag — it would have been really cool.”

Luymes said the Homecoming committee had tried to spread the word to residence halls and organizations around campus about the changes in Yell Like Hell.

“We had a big meeting and a lot of residence hall representatives came,” Luymes said. “We weren’t expecting a big turnout since it was the first year, but our goal was six teams.”

Luymes said other things may also have affected turnout.

“Homecoming was also earlier this year and maybe that is another reason that we had a poor turnout,” she said. “There wasn’t a lot of time to get things going.”

Luymes said even though the skits weren’t successful this year, she is hoping that future Homecoming chairs will continue with the idea and make it happen in the future.

“After doing it myself I know what I could have possibly done to be more successful and I am hoping that next year it will work out better,” she said. “It would be a great way for organizations to get their name out or to build floor unity in a residence hall, and it’s also just a fun way to get pumped up for Homecoming.

“We should continue with it, and work on it even more.”

Andrea Rheinhart, residence hall coordinator for Homecoming, said she talked with Luymes as early as last January about how residence halls could get involved with Yell Like Hell.

“We found pretty quickly that it would be very difficult for a residence hall group to participate successfully in the traditional Yell Like Hell, so we decided to add the Improv Division as a way to involve both residence halls and student organizations,” said Rheinhart, junior in management. “The goal of Homecoming this year, and definitely in future years, is to involve a broad range of students and get campus-wide participation.”

Rheinhart said this is the first year that the Homecoming Committee has had the position of a Residence Hall Coordinator, so this is a foundation year to set precedents for future years.

“The effort to involve residence halls is by no means complete, and things were a little rough around the edges this year, but we look forward to refining our strategies and the events themselves to make it possible for anyone to be involved in Iowa State’s Homecoming,” Rheinhart said.