This Thursday the Inter Residence Hall Association will discuss funding for ExTRAvaganza, the state of the conference committee and condoms.

ExTRAvaganza, an annual student-organized celebration at Towers, is scheduled for April 6. A bill requesting $2,500 from IRHA to fund the event will be presented at Thursday’s IRHA meeting.

“Last year [ExTRAvaganza] cost over $10,000 and we’re trying to get more money to have more fireworks,” said Dave Breutzmann, TRA at-large representative.

“We can’t do it on our own anymore because fireworks are expensive.”

Two proposals will also be presented concerning confrerences. Some IRHA members want to change the current policies concerning students who attend leadership conferences to make them accountable for what they learn. Others want to eliminate the conference committee from IRHA altogether.

Nick Leitheiser, Linden Hall representative, said IRHA provides funding for students to attend two conferences, the National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH) and Midwest Association of College and University Residence Halls (MACHURH).

“One of the problems we see on the conference committee is that there is really no stipulation that requires [those attending] to come back and use their knowledge to better the residence halls,” Leitheiser said.

Joe MacDonald, Storms Hall representative, and Natasha Krentz, director of conferences, wrote the proposal with Leitheiser.

He said they would like the students to organize a program for the residence halls or other organizations to demonstrate what they learned at the conferences.

Keith Twombley, TRA president, and Talitha Fox, Maple Hall president, will be propose that conferences be completely eliminated from IRHA.

“Right now there’s a conference committee in IRHA and basically it’s people in IRHA who set up and coordinate to send Iowa State students to these conferences,” Twombley said.

Twombley said if the conference committees broke away from IRHA and formed its own entity, they could find other means of funding and “it would allow it to flourish.”

IRHA will also present a resolution “stating that IRHA supports the availability of condoms in residence hall vending machines, and further requests that the Department of Residence makes condoms available in Dining Services C-Stores,” said Dave Boike, IRHA vice president.

“Most people in IRHA agree with the resolution, but there are a few people in the Department of Residence who don’t,” Twombley said. “There should be no problem with IRHA passing it.”