Government of the Student Body President Brian Phillips, senior in political science, has taken a proactive approach to the high turnover rate that plagues GSB at the end of nearly every semester.

Phillips initiated a casual executive order to communicate with members of the GSB senate and cabinet regarding the problems facing GSB. The main issue discussed was the upcoming turnover, but other topics were raised as well.

“It was pretty informal, but we talked about the vacancies that’ll be coming up,” Phillips said. “I also mentioned that the election cycle will be starting soon, and we also spoke about university committees.”

Phillips said this semester has been different from years past because of a lack of outside projects by GSB senators.

“I’ve been concerned because there has been a mentality this semester that we’re not seeking out as many projects as we should be doing and we’re spending more time on internal issues,” Phillips said. “I think a lot of people [in GSB] are feeling that, and I think part of it might be due to a lack of participation on senate.”

Arguably the biggest position change that will take place in the spring is that of new speaker of the senate, Paul Keppy, junior in political science.

Keppy will be filling the shoes of former speaker Adam Krupicka, graduate student-undeclared, who will be leaving Iowa State, discontinuing his graduate studies.

“I think Adam has created some pretty big shoes, and I think it’s going to be hard to fill those,” Keppy said. “He has set the bar pretty high and I am glad to have worked with him for the past semester.”

Keppy said one of his goals for the remainder of the academic year is to rally GSB senators to get the ball rolling on universitywide projects.

“I’m hoping to work on ideas from senators about what external projects we can work on to benefit all students,” Keppy said. “I am hoping to extract ideas from senators and then group people together that have similar ideas so we can get the ball rolling on some of these projects.”

While most students are going to be using Winter Break to relax and unwind after the semester, Phillips and Keppy will both be working to continue to improve on what they say was an effective fall semester while bolstering attendance when it comes to the number of senate members.