This year, Iowa State’s homecoming committee hopes to see an increase in the number of non-Greek students who are involved in homecoming.

“We want this to be a campus-wide event, rather than just the Greek community,” said Kelly Kennedy, Homecoming General Co-Chair. “We really want to make homecoming a university event.”

Kennedy, senior in elementary education, said that this year’s homecoming committee hopes to see a rise in student involvement in the residence halls.

To make that happen, she said, there has been increased advertising in the residence halls for the different tournaments, such as innertube water basketball and darts. Changes have also been made to Yell like Hell, a competition that has been known in the past as being largely dominated by greeks.

This year Yell Like Hell includes an improvisational event — similar to the regular competition, but without the preparation.

“It’s not such a time commitment, so we’re hoping that residence halls will get involved,” Kennedy said.

She said the lack of residence hall participation in the past was due to a lack of publicity. This year, she said they’re promoting homecoming to every floor on campus.

Andrea Rheinhart, Homecoming residence hall liaison, started going to resident assistants and hall council meetings last semester to hand out surveys and ask questions about Homecoming.

“I wanted to know what they would like Homecoming to be for them,” said Rheinhart, junior in management. “[We want them] to take ownership of their participation.”

Rheinhart lived in the residence halls last year, and said she noticed a big lack of participation.

“I wasn’t even aware that Homecoming was going on last year,” she said. “I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of participation from residence halls because they don’t have anyone telling them about ISU traditions and the fun things that go on.”

This year, Rheinhart is working to change that. Each residence hall floor was asked to have a Homecoming chair sit on the floor cabinet. Rheinhart works directly with those students, who in turn take information about Homecoming to other students on their floors.

Joann Ford, senior in psychology and RA for seventh floor of Larch Hall, is sharing the job of Homecoming chair with another student on her floor. She said they have begun advertising via mass E-mails on their floor as well as a homecoming bulletin board.

“At least half my floor, if not more [plans to participate],” Ford said. “We’re trying to do all the tournaments.” She also said her floor is planning on being part of this year’s Yell Like Hell.

Rheinhart said she hoped the new Yell Like Hell event would be popular among the residence halls.

“Events that are having the biggest draw are the ones that are easy to get involved in,” she said.

Rheinhart has also been distributing an informational Homecoming newsletter called “Emergency Toilet Paper” to each floor, putting them up in the bathrooms for everyone to read in hope that everyone will have access to some information about homecoming.

“The bathroom is central, everybody goes there eventually,” she said.

Rheinhart said the purpose of all the advertising she’s doing is summed up in this year’s Homecoming vision statement: “A celebration uniting the ISU community, alumni, and friends to create and renew traditions that showcase Iowa State University.”

That’s why this year they’re trying to increase the involvement beyond the corners of the greek community.

“Eventually we’d like to work toward off-campus [involvement],” Rheinhart said, “But, since this is the first year, it’s easier to target residence halls.”

Rheinhart said she thinks “homecoming should be an all-campus celebration.”