Emily Kucera
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After two days of voting with more than 10 percent of on-campus residents participating, the 2014-2015 Inter Housing Council (IHC) officers were chosen this past month.
The new IHC President is Christian Odegard, a mechanical engineering sophomore from Houston, Texas. Odegard lives on campus and plans to continue to do so his junior year as well.
Odegard has been involved with IHC for the two years he’s been at Cal Poly. He was involved with Cerro Vista’s community council as a freshman and this year — as a sophomore — he was a representative at large.
Odegard said being involved with IHC for two years influenced his decision to run for IHC president.
“I was like, ‘Well, if I’m going to stay involved with it, then I think I would be a good candidate for that position because I have a lot of experience,’” he said. “I kind of know how things get done … and there’s not going to be any turn around time.”
Odegard was not expecting to win the election, he said, but is excited that he did.
“The two other people that were running against me were really social and really outgoing; had a lot of friends and stuff, and that’s not really me,” he said. “I’m more of an introvert, and that was going against me, but I also had more experience, which I touted.”
Odegard said the IHC executive board and advisors have been good this year, and his main goal is to keep their momentum going.
“They’ve really taken the program — which was sort of static, kind of on cruise control, if you will — and they’ve really vamped it up,” he said.
Odegard said Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong’s goal to eventually make living on campus mandatory for both freshmen and sophomores is a good idea.
“I think if the first and second years were forced to live on campus, that’d be a good thing,” Odegard said.
He said living on campus for another year would be beneficial to students.
“I think having a second year being on campus, where it’s a stable atmosphere, is beneficial because then you can say, ‘Okay, now that I’ve got my bearings, everything’s kind of going well (in) my academic career and my personal life,’ then you can add that next variable, which is living off campus,” he said.
Living on campus has been a positive experience, Odegard said, and he is excited to represent on-campus residents as IHC president.