The Government of the Student Body wants to make students finance savvy.

Ryan Kennedy, GSB director of academic affairs and senior in accounting, proposed a one-credit class based on financial literacy at the Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday. He said GSB proposed the class as an opportunity for students to understand the bare basics of paying for a college education.

“Seventy-seven percent of students we polled said that they [the students] felt that students would take this course because they’d find it useful,” Kennedy said. “The Human Sciences College has a course that is like what we are proposing. The 283 class in Human Sciences is very popular and many people take it. We can pull a lot of information from that class and compact it.”

Kennedy said they are early in the planning stages and do not know whether they’d like to make the class a requirement or not.

“Some colleges have an online course called Creating a Financial Path to Graduation. We are also looking at doing an online course like that for students to demonstrate that they have this knowledge [of finances],” Kennedy said.

Also at the meeting, Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth Hoffman mentioned the key topics that were discussed at the recent Board of Regents meetings.

Hoffman said sexual assault protocols have been a major topic of discussion and allowed Susan Carlson, associate provost, to speak about the matter.

“We want to make sure we’re equipped with good policies and that we follow them. The provost office will be involved as the university determines through the Board of Regents what the best policy is,” Carlson said. “Our partnership with UNI and the University of Iowa will be important.”

At the meeting, senators were introduced to Elizabeth Newell, the new ombuds officer appointed in September 2008.

As the ombuds officer, Newell’s responsibilities include providing informal and confidential problem-solving assistance to faculty on work-related issues or disputes. She said she is very excited to help out in any way she can at Iowa State.

“My approach that I hope to use is to sit down with folks to see what I can do to help them,” Newell said. “Once I hear the story, I try to see if there’s some way we can put the parties on the same page to resolve the conflicts that they might be facing. My current goal is to be effective.”