With second semester already underway, the Government of the Student Body has begun plans to move forward with new projects, policy changes and improvement to its structure.

One project GSB President Jared Knight and his cabinet have been working on is the Committee on Undergraduate Education.

The committee, which will consist of student and faculty representatives, looks to gain more student input on the hiring of faculty members and on end-of-the-semester evaluations for professors.

“We want to get more input from students and have more communication at the departmental level,” said Chief of Staff Andrew Gall. “We also are coming up with the best practice for feedback. Right now, the only student feedback is through the professor surveys.”

Knight pointed out other projects that are currently in the works for the second semester.

Part of Knight’s plans include improvements to the Iowa State app, MyState, which focuses on vehicle insurance for campus organizations to use, and a new bus tracking system.

Outside of Iowa State, Knight would like to see an increased line of communication between the three state universities, as well as the Iowa State Ambassadors, who lobby at the State Capitol for student interests. 

“There is a lot to cover this semester and not a whole lot of time,” Knight said.

Since the end of last semester, Gall has been working on a pilot program that could possibly replace the Connecting with Constituents policy depending on the success of the trial run. Connecting with Constituents asks that GSB senators go out and meet with a certain number of different Iowa State clubs and organizations every month.

The new outreach program idea was borrowed from a University of Kansas Student Senate policy, which works as a point system.

Senators would have to meet a monthly quota of points, with points being obtained by attending meetings with clubs and organizations. Points toward a senator’s quota can also be earned by retweeting or reposting GSB statuses on their personal Facebook or Twitter accounts.

“This gives senators more options and allows them to reach out to their constituents in other ways,” Gall said.

An area that has raised some concern among senators, especially Speaker of the Senate Gage Kensler, has been the retention of senators.

After the first semester session ended, GSB lost eight senators due to graduation or some changing constituent areas. Others left due to academic workload.

“This shows a mix of a lot of things; we do have some who didn’t realize how big of a time commitment this was,” Kensler said. “People were also not able to get away with as many things this past semester so it took more time for them.”

Kensler and Gall also commented on the need for better communication between the executive and legislative branches in order to decrease confusion and increase efficiency.

“We need to make sure people are staying on task and completing their tasks more this semester,” Gall said.