Now that they’ve been elected as president and vice president for next year’s Inter-Residence Hall Association, Tom Plagge and Chris Benson are getting ready to go to work.

President-elect Plagge, junior in computer engineering, and Vice President-elect Benson, junior in animal science, promised during their campaign they would work to make IRHA more visible and to expand it to different areas of the university.

“We don’t want people to be confused as to what IRHA does and does not do,” Plagge said.

Both Plagge and Benson plan to reside in Ames this summer and want to take an active role in bringing students together early in the fall semester.

“We will be here over the summer to plan things like Welcome Week,” Plagge said.

He said IRHA members need to work on making themselves more available to the students and expanding communication between IRHA and the students.

“We need to make ourselves visible externally,” Plagge said.

One subject that both Plagge and Benson anticipate to be a hot topic in the fall is Veishea and its future. IRHA must vote every fall semester if it is willing to support an alcohol-free celebration.

“I think Veishea’s future is uncertain,” Benson said. “Right now, it’s at a pivotal point in its history.”

Plagge said it will be up to the students whether the student-run celebration will stay alive.

Plagge and Benson also said they would like to work on expanding IRHA to other associations, such as Buchanan Hall and Hawthorn Court. Both said they want IRHA to be a campuswide association, not just for underclassmen.

“Something needs to be done for IRHA to maintain a viable voice. Otherwise, it’ll just be an organization of freshmen and sophomores,” Plagge said.

Plagge said he and Benson will encourage Hawthorn Court to join IRHA, but he thought Buchanan Hall will not be joining in the immediate future because of its upperclassman majority.

Both executives are planning on moving to Hawthorn Court this fall. If the students of the apartment-style living quarters decide in the fall not to join IRHA, Plagge and Benson will be forced to resign from their executive positions.

“We’ll step down, but we haven’t set a definite date yet,” Plagge said.

In the meantime, Benson said he was pleased with IRHA’s level of advocacy this semester, and he hopes it will continue next year.

“I think that was a great trend for parliament this year,” Benson said. He said one example of good legislation was the IRHA bill opposing an Iowa Senate bill that wanted to ban alcohol in dorms.

Parliament members had taken action against the alcohol ban by writing the state representatives and sending its bill to the Legislature and the ISU administration.

Students are able to help decide the fate of Veishea and other topics by applying now for IRHA Cabinet positions, Benson said. The applications are available on the IRHA Web site at http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/irha/.