Government of the Student Body senators Jake Swanson and David Bartholomew are looking to change the direction for the Government of the Student Body during this year’s election.

“We feel that GSB is not heading in the right direction,” Swanson said.

Swanson, junior in public service and administration in agriculture and business management, is running as the presidential candidate for the 2012/13 school year. Swanson is an Inter-Residence Hall Association senator and during his time at Iowa State has been part of the President’s Leadership Class, served as the Freshman Council President and been a member of the University Affairs Committee.

Bartholomew, junior in political science, history and Spanish, is Swanson’s vice president. Bartholomew is a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences senator.

Bartholomew also has been active during his time at Iowa State. He has worked as an assistant news editor for the Iowa State Daily, served as treasurer for the Model United Nations and been an undergraduate research assistant for the political science department.

“We want a lot of student input, we want what students want,” Swanson said in reference to getting more students’ voices involved in GSB. “We want them to help form our platform.”

Besides having more students input, the pair is looking to make GSB a more efficient group by reworking how financial allocations are done. Along with this, they are focusing on Campustown problems, library accessibility and international student affairs.

Another major issue the pair is focusing on is the departure of senators. Swanson and Bartholomew said less than one-third of the senators elected during last spring’s election are still on the GSB senate.

“It has been very hard to keep senators on GSB,” Bartholomew said. “We want to improve the number of senators staying and build better relations with them.”

When asked why he had chosen Bartholomew as his running mate, Swanson said the two work well together as teammates and that Bartholomew is a strong speaker who is passionate about students.

When asked about how their different backgrounds would benefit GSB, Bartholomew said their different opinions would bring every other idea into the fold, which in the end would benefit the student body.