As a typical student at Iowa State, you currently have little to no power over many of the things you care about: Dead Week policies, Department of Public Safety Parking Division, crows invading, acquiring large amounts of student loan debt — the list goes on and on.

I’m bringing this issue up now as no coincidence. The Government of the Student Body election is next Monday and Tuesday. There are two tickets trying to win the position of president and vice president: Knight-Brown and Swanson-Bartholomew.

Now, before you stop reading, please let me explain to you why you should be interested in your student government.

I won’t argue with you on the fact that as GSB currently stands, it’s pretty easy to think it doesn’t matter. In all honesty, it is doing things that could easily be absorbed by university staff. GSB is two things at Iowa State right now: a fund-allocating body and a megaphone for students. Megaphones can’t actually get anything accomplished, so all GSB really does is allocate student fee dollars. I believe one of these executive tickets will do what it takes to put some control back in the power of students, while the other will allow the status quo to continue.

Here’s my breakdown of why Knight-Brown represent the status quo: First, Jared Knight cares more about pleasing university administration than acting on the desires of the student body. I illustrate my basis for this statement in the following story.

You may remember last spring when the announcement was made that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Iowa State held the fifth largest celebration in the country. This took place between midnight and 2 a.m. the Monday of Finals Week. I was the chair of the Public Relations Committee on GSB at the time, and I posted a question on GSB’s Facebook page asking students if they would like to see GSB hold an emergency meeting to request the cancellation of finals Monday morning. When Knight found out I had done this, he told me never to do it again.

Second, Knight insists on referring to himself as the vice president of the Student Body. This is shown clearly in his email signature. Knight is not the vice president of the Student Body. Jared is the vice president of the Government of the Student Body, which is a registered student organization. There’s a big difference between the two.

Third, Knight is the current vice president of GSB. GSB sucks right now, and he’s been on GSB for at least two years. What will make next year any different?

Fourth, even if his current executive branch has accomplished something of note, does that make it OK not to address the issues the legislative branch is having? The president and vice president of an organization are responsible for the whole organization — not just a subdivision. Katie Brown is the director of membership development for GSB right now, and the legislative branch had one of the worst turnovers in its history this year, myself included.

And here’s how Swanson-Bartholomew would take back control: First, Jake Swanson explained to me his take that results come through being a good manager of resources, outstanding organization and excellent delegating of responsibilities. There’s way too much to get done for the people at the top to do it all. It’s about selecting a bunch of really devoted people to their specific areas of interest and managing the organization as a whole.

Second, Swanson understands that as the leader you act as a “safety net” for your people when things go wrong. You don’t place blame on the people who work hard for you when they make mistakes. You hold them accountable, but you must protect them. They are what will make this whole thing successful.

And third, Swanson realizes that with the proper management of the Government of the Student Body, he will have the time to prepare proposals to work with university administration on giving some control back to students.

In summary, vote for whoever you want to, but please vote. It’s so simple, you can do it from your smartphone at www.vote.iastate.edu. This is a great opportunity and privilege for the ISU student body.