Spencer Hughes, president of the Government of the Student Body, focused on the areas of transparency, connection and creative problem solving in his State of the Student Body Address.

Hughes said GSB has taken steps in the area of transparency by video recording and posting every senate meeting online, and by GSB leadership providing detailed reports available for everyone.

Hughes said steps can be taken to improve transparency in the area of financial matters.

“I have long called for a financial information on account balances, bills, transfers and all transactions to be posted on our website publicly. I am now making this a priority to facilitate between our finance director and our finance membership,” Hughes said.

Hughes suggested changing the current office hours system used by GSB members.

“I’ve worked with some GSB leadership to develop an idea that would change an office hour requirement to one that would have GSB membership staffing a booth at Parks Library, where a topic of the day for student feedback would be presented,” Hughes said.

Hughes said implementing the new GSB mission statement has been a step in the area of problem solving.

Hughes said service and improvement are of utmost importance for members of GSB

“How can we best serve students? In what way does this improve the student experience? How are we serving? How are we improving? These are the questions that we should be focusing on,” Hughes said.

During the meeting, Katelynn McCollough, editor-in-chief of the Iowa State Daily, presented. Currently, the Daily has $110,000 contract with GSB every year to pay for printing and distribution for copies of the newspaper.

McCollough said the Daily is a nonprofit corporation.

“The IRS, the official is (501(c)(3)), which means that we’re exempt from certain taxes, and that’s because of the size of our budget,” McCollough said.

McCollough said the Daily does utilize a publication board which is made up of students, faculty and community members and anybody can apply to be on the publication board.

“They’re involved in a lot of our funding decisions, our bylaw decisions, rebranding, anything like that has to be voted on by the publication board,” McCollough said.

McCollough said the Daily is rated as one of the top 10 student newspapers in the country by the College Media Association. In addition, she also noted the Daily has won 16 national awards in the last five years.

McCollough addressed concerns about the ability of all ISU students to work for the Iowa State Daily.

“Any student may apply and be in a paid position; they simply can’t cover themselves. So they could not be the [GSB] member that’s covering GSB members, and when it comes to our editorial board … it’s difficult for them to sit in that position because the editorial board often discusses matters of GSB,” McCollough said.