The work-in-progress honors building has been named after former ISU President Martin Jischke, but some Inter-Residence Hall Association members say he has not earned the honor.

UDA President Jeff Greiner and UDA At-large Rep. Jessica Raim submitted an IRHA bill to change the name of the Jischke Honors Building, which is still under construction. The two said they are representing student opinion.

“Nobody had any comments about [Jischke] saying he deserved the honor,” Greiner said.

The majority of students had a negative perception of Jischke, Raim said.

“The overwhelming feeling is that nobody liked Jischke as a person,” she said.

The name of the building was approved by the Board of Regents on July 19, 2000, said Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance.

For the name to be changed, the request would have to be approved by ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and the Board of Regents, he said.

“In my long history of being here, the Board of Regents wouldn’t do that,” Madden said.

Greiner said he realizes changing the name would be difficult.

“It would have to take some sort of major impact on [the Regents],” Greiner said.

“I really don’t think that they’ll change their minds. In my experience, the regents haven’t been very open to student opinion anyway.”

He said he doesn’t have any realistic hope of changing the name given the time frame. Greiner didn’t protest naming the building after Jischke when it was first proposed because he was vice president of IRHA, he said.

“I had to maintain my objectivity,” Greiner said.

There were people opposed to naming the new honors building after the former ISU president, Madden said.

“At the time the regents acted on this, there were some students and faculty that had issues with [Jischke’s] management,” he said.

Students went through a similar protest when trying to change the name of Catt Hall because they felt Carrie Chapman Catt had made racist remarks, Madden said.

“They spent about two years working on that,” he said. “They went through the same kind of process. I’m not aware of any building that has had a name change.”

Raim, who is involved with the Honors Program, said she thinks there is a better choice for the building’s name.

“I’m involved with an organization that worked very closely with Jischke and had nothing but bad things to say about him,” she said.

Greiner said his feeling on the issue began as “personal opinion,” but he said the majority of students he has spoken with share his view.

“I [spoke with] a few underclassmen that didn’t directly live here when [Jischke] was president, but they still live under the effects of him as president,” Greiner said.

“I didn’t do a lot of research besides having been here for four years, and any of [Jischke’s] interactions with student government have been ineffective.”

Some of the controversy is over Iowa State’s rule stating that nothing can be named after someone until they have been absent from the university for two years.

The rule formerly stated that five years must pass between the resignation or death of an employee before a building can be named in his or her honor.

“I believe that even today the purpose for that was that people didn’t do things in the heat of the moment, so there was time to consider [the individual’s] contribution,” Madden said.

Even so, he said, there have been exceptions over the years. The library, for example, was named after former ISU President William Parks before he left his post at Iowa State.

“By and large every president of ISU has ended up with their name on something,” Madden said.

Raim said a street should be named after Jischke instead.

“The honors building is too important,” she said.

“Basically the bill is a statement of our beliefs. It’s only proper to represent a dissenting opinion.”