Until recently, the GSB election appeared to be uncontested. However, there are officially two executive slates for the upcoming election and both presidential candidates have big plans for Iowa State.

Jonathan Turk, junior in political science, will run against Jason Boggess, senior in mechanical engineering.

Chandra Peterson, junior in political science, will be Turk’s running mate, and Derek Haskin, junior in pre-business, will join Boggess.

Boggess said his campaign will focus on three student issues: student safety, the Live Green! Initiative and managing misused monies.

“In the years my running mate has been a resident of Helser Hall, there have been three sexual assaults right outside Helser’s doors,” Boggess said.

Aside from those three, many more sexual assaults go unreported in the residence halls and around campus every year, he said.

“Iowa State only has a small number of help stations around campus in which students could take refuge if they were in trouble. Most universities have hundreds, and we see this difference as a big problem,” Boggess said.

The Boggess-Haskin campaign also plans to address the issue of student scholarships.

“[We have heard complaints] that athletes receive full-ride scholarships while students earning a 4.0 grade-point average receive nothing,” Boggess said.

“Our aim will not be to remove athletic scholarships, but even out the scholarships given to all high-achieving students in any field,” he said.

The Turk-Peterson campaign plans to focus primarily on the issue of student debt. 

“We will use our positions on the Special Student Fee and Tuition Committee to continue to work on keeping the tuition and fees rate recommendation to Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy and the Board of Regents as low as possible,” Turk said. 

Additionally, the campaign plans to continue efforts of the current administration by working on making students more aware of financial aid options. They plan to utilize GSB’s ISU Ambassadors to continue to lobby for increased funding for higher education issues, financial aid and textbook prices.

Both Boggess and Turk said they believe they are qualified to serve as the next GSB president.

Boggess is currently the president of Martin Hall and a member of the Inter-Residence Hall Association, an analog of GSB for the residence halls.

“While in IRHA, I wrote and passed bills to amend the IRHA bylaws, fund various IRHA events and to propose a scholarship committee to offer resident hall students substantial IRHA scholarships,” he said.

Boggess also served on the ISU Dining Committee, planning and making decisions for the dining centers.

“We were able to get a Sunday night dinner for the following school year and allow students to enter a meal period multiple times. In IRHA, I then helped present and pass the bill to keep trays in the dining centers,” he said. “We felt the cost and environmental savings did not outweigh the expense of the students.”

Boggess said he worked closely with the IRHA president and vice president to re-negotiate the laundry contract “to push for better washers and a Web-based laundry monitoring system for the next school year — all of that at no extra charge to the student,” he said.

“I started in GSB my freshmen year as an associate justice of the supreme court and a member of the all-university judicial board,” Turk said.

As a sophomore, Turk was elected to serve as a senator for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and was elected as the vice speaker of the senate for that term.

His junior year, he was re-elected as an LAS senator and elected speaker of the senate, the chief officer of the legislative body. 

“Serving in this position has allowed me the opportunity to work hand in hand with the current GSB executives in setting the agenda for the organization as a whole,” Turk said. 

Additionally, it gave him the opportunity to work with university and city administrators, as well as students and student organizations, he said.

“In addition to my work on GSB, I have had leadership experience in serving as a member and president of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Student Council for the last two years, the vice president of judicial affairs for the Inter-fraternity Council for 2008 and a member of the Campustown Student Association,” Turk said.

There are currently 25 people running for senate seats, two of whom are running for multiple seats. The LAS, Engineering, Inter-fraternity Council and Frederiksen Court seats all have more candidates than openings.

GSB general elections:

Midnight on March 2 to 11:59 p.m. on March 3