A new plan of action.

The Government of the Student Body’s new president and vice president hope to tackle a familiar set of issues, but with a brand new mind-set.

Like most GSB administrations before them, Daniel Fischer and Maggie Luttrell — GSB president and vice president, respectively — want to tackle the problem of student debt. Their main goal is to convey to lawmakers that students are hit by more than just tuition costs, but also high textbook prices and student loans.

“We really feel like we should be looking at different parts,” Fischer said.

Fischer, senior in agricultural business, said he and Luttrell will continue lobbying lawmakers to push for allocations from the state.

Additionally, he wants students to become more educated about financial issues and hopes to have GSB formulate a “condensed report” about the facts of student debt.

“Financial literacy is a major problem with Iowa State students,” Luttrell, senior in history, said.

Although student debt has been a reoccurring theme of GSB’s goals in the past, Fischer doesn’t think it’s because of a lack of execution.

“I don’t think you can really blame anybody on GSB or say they didn’t do the things right,” he said. “I think where we can improve upon is saying it’s not just tuition, it’s a whole wealth of issues that need to be addressed and we need to make these issues with the people who can make the changes.”

Fischer and Luttrell said they want to represent students effectively. Luttrell said an important goal was to keep as many positions filled as possible throughout the year. Part of this includes increasing communication with the student body. Fischer said leaders before him have worked hard in the past, but the key is listening to what students are saying.

“It really needs to be about outreach and engagement,” he said.

One way they plan to go about this is to resurrect a little known part of the GSB bylaws. There is a point in the bylaws that requires the public relations committee to conduct a survey each semester to measure student opinion of GSB and find out what issues students care about. Neither Fischer nor Luttrell could recall the last time one was conducted.

The political process will also be high on GSB’s agenda this year. With 2008 being an election year, one of the things they want to do is get students to care about the election process, both on a national and local level.

“We also want to make sure that the students are aware of why these state elections matter,” Fischer said. “I think everybody knows about John McCain and Barack Obama and these huge issues, but people probably really aren’t totally aware of how important the issues are in the state legislature.”

Voter registration is important to them as well. GSB wants to encourage students to vote and will be working with Iowa Public Interest Research Group to help register students to vote, Luttrell said.

She also said success is more than just a numbers game, because sometimes funds may not be available every year.

“Our success isn’t measured by how many extra dollars we get a year, it’s how aggressive were we and how assertive were we with the state Legislature,” Luttrell said.

They also want to take on the lack of diversity in GSB. Fischer said they plan to create an ad hoc committee to develop a plan to increase the diversity in GSB.

Luttrell said she has been in contact with diversity organizations when she was working on filling committee positions and asked if they would be interesting in participating. The response was an “overwhelming yes.”

“I think our relationships thus far with different diversity organization is great, and obviously we want to just continue to build that and work with them and not against them,” she said.

GSB 2008-2009 priorities:

Engage and effectively represent the student body in university, local and state issues:

•Ensure fair and transparent allocations of student funds.

•Conduct semester surveys to measure students’ top priorities.

•Establish relationships with greek and residence hall communities.

Advocate the problem of student debt and propose a diverse set of solutions:

•Lobby for a diverse set of issues, including higher state funding, stable tuition increases, affordable loans and improved career prospects.

•Develop a yearly, brief report on ISU debt for communication with state and political leaders.

•Educate and inform students about state and federal elections.

Form cooperative partnerships with ISU administrators and student organizations:

•Seek and create programs to enhance academic and student life experiences.

•Create joint projects and events with other campus organizations.

Recruit, develop and retain the best campus leaders:

•Recruit motivated students with diverse views, ideas and goals for GSB.

•Provide proper orientation and clear expectations of the representation process to GSB leaders.

— Provided by Daniel Fischer and Maggie Luttrell

GSB executives’ goals for the year:

Fischer:

“Engage and effectively represent the student body in university, local and state issues”

“Recruit, develop, and retain the best campus leaders”

Luttrell:

“Form cooperative partnerships with ISU administrators and student organizations”

“Advocate the problem of student debt and a diverse set of solutions”