I am very upset with Iowa State University’s residence hall student government system.

I think that it is unfair and unjust. I recently served as a member of one of the branches in residence hall student government and really believe that students should hear or read what is going on.

The Inter-Residence Hall Association (IRHA) hardly ever takes into consideration the opinions of the students that it represents unless it is for funding of some event or activity.

Very few of the residence hall students realize that IRHA (an organization that was designed to represent these students) has spent almost $5,000 on Veishea floats and activities.

Each semester, students who live in the residence halls must pay $3, no ifs, ands or buts. You have no choice but to pay. To give $5,000 to Veishea and its activities, IRHA is taking dues from over 830 students and throwing it down the drain.

Do you think this is fair?

This past semester has been a terrible one for IRHA. How can a governmental body be run effectively and efficiently if its Executive Council cannot even get along as a team? Is there really any leadership within IRHA?

Executive Council members all get paid the same ($6,000 in dues collected from residence hall students goes to pay the executive council stipends) and receive the same perks (parking privileges), but why can’t they all do the work that the constitution outlines for them to do?

In some opinions, the leadership in IRHA is by means a dictatorship.

I believe that this is no way to successfully run any form of student government. I think and believe that there should be compromise within student government and not the dictation that currently occurs.

There is a lot of dirty politics going on within student government at Iowa State University.

Everyone who wants to do anything within any part of the student governmental system always tends to find some loophole in the system to pass their project through.

If an organization writes a constitution, I believe that they should stick to and abide by it and not undermine it.

I know that the IRHA elections just passed and there are very few new people were elected into office for the next school year. I have a bad

feeling that this year will just repeat itself for next year unless something

is done to improve the situation.

On the other hand, when I pay over $3,000 a year to live in the residence halls, I think that they should at least be safe and have the backing of the residence hall personnel.

For example, (on April 10) when the power went out in RCA, there were no emergency flood/security lights that went on for those living in the RCA residence halls.

I can tell you one thing: It gets very dark and very dangerous for those living in that type of a situation. I know of two accounts where people were injured due to the fact that there was no light.

Plus, the Department of Residence is not liable for anything that could have or may have occurred during it.

Another example is the fact that a few months ago, an RA resigned and the floor was not notified. If there had been an emergency, who would have responded?

The house president? What could they have done? They have no training in an emergency situation like an RA does.

One of the concerned students living on the floor tried communicating with the Department of Residence and was literally shut down and called a liar.

This individual was told that she should just keep her mouth shut and mind her own business and that the situation had been taken care of.

Yeah, sure the situation was taken care of. There still was no RA or person in charge and all the necessary and important rules were being broken.

I tried to speak up for this student within IRHA and was also told to mind my own business.

For a final example, I believe that the fire alarms in some of the residence halls still do not work properly, or at all.

There was an article about this last semester and still nothing was changed or done by the administration to remedy the situation.

What would really happen if the fire alarm was pulled, not for a false alarm, but for a real fire and it didn’t work? How would the Department of Residence handle or respond to that?

In closing, I would like to say that there are several glitches in the student government system here at Iowa State University.

Several of these problems seem to be human-judgment errors and should not have happened or occurred.

Student government and the Department of Residence are both supposed to stand up for the students whom the represent and who pay to live there or be represented.

The student beliefs also need to be represented and I don’t believe that any of these things are being done.

Only the students can fix these problems. Please let your RA, house president or IRHA representative know what your problems are and see if you get any response to remedy the situation.

Steph Danielsen is a sophomore in Human Development and Family Studies.