Iowa State’s Inter-Residence Hall Association is something every student living in dorms pays for, yet remains a lesser known organization on campus.

IRHA is a governmental body representing residence halls on campus, funded by a $14 due paid via Ubill by every student living in residence halls.

The organization is structured in a way where each hall council votes on representatives to go to IRHA, which also has an executive branch lead by current president, ISU senior Scott Fisk.

According to Fisk, IRHA is responsible for coordinating events, ensuring health and safety of residents and advocating on behalf of students to university administration.

“Anything that’s of benefit to our residents,” Fisk said.

Despite playing such an important role in the lives of ISU students who choose to live on campus, IRHA remains something many incoming freshman and returning students know little about.

Caleb Woods, Sophomore and Director of Communications for IRHA, says communication and outreach isn’t necessarily something his organization struggles with but is something where there is always room for improvement.

As part of an effort to improve outreach with students, Woods is launching an Instagram page and Snapchat as a way to communicate with students. Woods also urges students to keep an eye out for posters that serve as a way to communicate various IRHA sponsored events.

“A lot of fun things go on, there’s different activities and prizes residents can win. So, definitely those are things residents should look out for,” Woods said.

IRHA sponsored events are a large part of what IRHA does. Woods shared that IRHA has helped him personally in making friends and meeting other people in residence halls.

“I definitely think it’s very important from a social aspect,” Woods said, “It was very huge in my life when it came to finding friends,”.

While Woods is focusing on increasing outreach through social media, Fisk is also making outreach a goal of his as president.

“One of my biggest goals this year is facilitating more communication and discussion on what IRHA is and kind of forming our brand,” Fisk said, “I don’t think in the past we’ve done the best with communication, but Caleb has a lot of great ideas there,”

Fisk is also looking at going around and visiting with students in residence halls as much as possible. Fisk also urges students to get involved in the processes of IRHA.

“All of our meeting are open to all of our constituents, they take place 7:30 in the MU,” Fisk said.

IRHA meetings will begin September 14^th and will be held every Thursday following then. Until then, Hall Councils will meet and elect representatives to go on to IRHA.

In addition to these IRHA positions students can run for, there are many open positions available for students looking to get involved. The position of Vice President is open, as well as two positions for at-large representatives. There are also three positions available for Student Government Senators looking to represent IRHA in Student Government.

Fisk welcomes all students to apply, but asks that they are currently living or have lived at least one semester in a residence hall. Questions can be directed to [email protected].