Having minority representation at the Inter-Residence Hall Association meetings has been a problem in the past, but the separate association governments are trying to increase minority involvement this semester.

“They are trying their best to get the programs off the ground,” said Joe Foster, IRHA vice president.

Each residence hall has a multicultural support group that holds its own separate meetings from IRHA, but IRHA has open parliament seats for a multicultural representative from each association.

“People haven’t taken much interest in it in the past,” Foster said.

Zewde Demissie, Wallace Hall IRHA representative and president of the Towers Residence Association support group, Students for Social Justice, said she was unaware of the available representative positions.

“We just elected one on [Nov. 1], and he will be coming to the meetings,” Demissie said.

The elected representative is Storms Hall resident Ryan Hardy, senior in liberal studies.

Maureen Garvey, adviser of Students for Social Justice, said the group is trying to help people understand why multicultural representation on IRHA is important.

“I think this is a great opportunity to have a voice in student government,” Garvey said.

Garvey said having representatives at meetings helps ensure IRHA decisions will represent students of different backgrounds.

“It is important to for the groups to be involved in the decisions that affect students,” she said.

Union Drive Association also is planning on sending a representative to the meetings soon.

“We picked one a couple weeks ago, but she wasn’t able to participate yet,” said Robert Lipsey, adviser of the UDA support group, Multicultural Action Group (MCAG).

Lipsey said the MCAG representative may participate in the IRHA meetings as soon as Thursday, which would be a great improvement on last year.

“Last year, the student support groups were going through some reconstruction in the leadership positions,” he said.

Richardson Court Association is behind TRA and UDA in organizing a multicultural support group.

“As of right now, we’re trying to get it started again,” said Kelly Johnson, RCA education-cultural chairwoman.

Johnson said she is helping to get the Multicultural Awareness and Support System, the RCA support group, regrouped.

She said the group has been non-functional for the last two years but is planning on electing a cabinet Thursday.

Lipsey said the role of the representatives is to pass information about what the action groups are doing in each association, but just being at the meetings won’t be enough.

“I think IRHA needs to have something invested in the representatives,” Lipsey said.

Lipsey said when the representatives can’t vote with the rest of the parliament, they feel like they don’t have equal ground at the meetings.

Foster said he believed multicultural support groups have had difficulty in getting representatives to come to the meetings partly because it is a non-voting position.

Demissie also thinks voting power might encourage representatives to attend meetings more often, but it won’t be the determining factor.

“If they want to be involved in things, and if they want to bring the information to the IRHA, they will go to the meetings,” Demissie said.