We believe the Government of the Student Body is important. That is why we met with both GSB presidential candidates two weeks ago; we wanted to discuss their platforms and initiatives and provide you with our evaluation of them.

We found that the position Jacob Swanson and David Bartholomew — who is taking a leave of absence from his position as an assistant news editor at the Daily during the election — take on student debt to be one of the most pertinent issues to students. Their plan consists of creating a new Cabinet position and task force to educate students concerning the FAFSA, scholarships and low-interests loans.

Their plan for student debt works within GSB, it’s achievable and it is progress in the right direction. They expressed a desire to communicate with other Big 12 schools similar to Iowa State and share ideas for helping students and reducing costs. The only concern we had, and we hope you’ll look into, is the concern of redundancy.

There are existing programs to help students and an entire organization from GSB — the Iowa State Ambassadors — who work on reducing student debt. The question for students is whether a new position in GSB and a new task force will help students or create additional bureaucratic barriers.

The Swanson and Bartholomew platform is heavily built on building a foundation for long-term changes at Iowa State. As students, we care about the future of Iowa State, and between now and the election, we encourage students to consider where they want to see Iowa State go.

However, we also are concerned about the balance of now versus then. Future GSB executives may care less about the foundations laid by Swanson and Bartholomew. There needs to be critical solutions to issues now, flexibility for the future and foundations for improvement.

Part of GSB’s future consists of senator retention, which is less than 40 percent. Swanson and Bartholomew want to assign senators to multicultural clubs in addition to their requirement to visit existing clubs. We believe this will help GSB reach out to students, help multicultural students integrate into Iowa State and help retain senators

Their initiative for online reporting of racism — and any other act of discrimination or hazing — through an anonymous network also seems like a good idea. It’s easy to implement, within GSB’s preview and would help generate valuable information on Iowa State’s issues of discrimination.

We do plea caution, though: There always exists the potential for grudge informers, and any legislation would need to be drafted very carefully.

There are many benefits you should consider to the Swanson and Bartholomew platforms and these are but a few. Before you make your decision, contact them, talk with your friends and decide what issues matter most to you.