With 10 months to go, a new overall committee has been appointed for the 2005 Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

Seth Moser (senior-mechanical engineering) was appointed Thon overall on March 18, and the rest of the overall committee was selected April 7. Moser said he would like to increase the efficiency of the way the overall committee and captain committees work.

"Currently, information is often both scattered and poorly managed," Moser said. "Through a variety of different tactics, such as reorganization of people and integration of technology, I believe that this goal is attainable."

Moser also said the energy level at Thon 2004 was "amazing," and he plans to keep that energy level high.

"In general, we all plan on striving to bring dance marathon to a new level," said Erinn Kane (junior-special education), hospitality overall. "We want to really get the word out, spread awareness past the Pennsylvania borders."

Kane also said she wants the hospitality committee to build on the relationship made with Outback Steakhouse last year.

"I want to continue to make the dancers as happy as possible when it comes to eating," Kane said.

Jeff Sirkin (senior-electrical engineering), communications overall, said he wants to use resident assistants to increase freshman participation and find alternative ways to fundraise aside from canning.

"I want to dispel the idea that you have to be in a greek organization to do Thon," Sirkin said.

Greg DeBuck (senior-turfgrass science), operations overall, also said he wants more freshman involvement.

"I also hope to improve communication of committee members so they are better informed to make decisions on their own," DeBuck said.

Jeremy Hatter (senior-computer science) is the first person to be named technology and donor development overall. The job was created to help manage all the data needed for Thon to run in an easy and convenient manner.

"One thing that we are really looking to improve next year is our use of technology, said Evan Jacobs (junior-political science), rules and regulations overall. "Hopefully, dancer registration and pass list submission will be completed online this year. This will save a lot of time for dancers, organizations and committees."

Andrew Simonelli (senior-public relations), special events overall, said he would like to increase participation in the Thon 5K, attain more publicity for the Kick Off Dinner and make changes to the Thon Celebration to help increase participation.

"The reason I got involved with Thon is because my best friend had cancer twice," Simonelli said. "I watched him suffer for years, but there was nothing I could do to make him well. Naturally, the best thing I could do was to help other families going through the same thing."

Mike Cocco (senior-economics), morale overall, said he wanted to be involved in Thon from the beginning.

"When I was first introduced to Thon, it took no more than a split second for me to realize that I wanted to make this a huge part of my life," Cocco said. "The way in which many different people from different backgrounds come together for one simple, yet amazing cause, is like heaven on Earth."

Cocco said he plans to integrate morale with the other committees by having the captains and overalls of other committees speak at traditionally morale-only, pre-Thon events to help give every moraler the information necessary to help out their dancers.

Thon weekend will be Feb. 18-20, 2005.