More than half of the bills being heard during Wednesday’s Government of the Student Body Senate meeting will be funding bills, a ratio that GSB President Brian Phillips, senior in political science, is glad to see.

“It’s going to be a busy meeting but, on the plus side, more than half of the bills are funding bills, so we are going to be getting back to working for the students,” Phillips said.

There will be four groups whose finances will be directly affected by the vote of GSB senators: the Black Graduate Student Association, the Iowa State Fencing Club, the Russian Speaking Student Association and the ISU Tennis Club.

Along with these four groups, there is also a bill up for second read that, pending a majority vote, would urge Governor Chet Culver and the Board of Regents to continue to fully fund Iowa State as a whole and to help keep graduating students in the state of Iowa.

According to the higher education support bill, “high tuition rates have yielded record high levels of student debt among Iowa State University graduates, with 68 percent of graduates carrying over $27,000 in student debt. High levels of debt also force graduates to leave the state of Iowa for higher-paying jobs elsewhere.”

The bill goes on to suggest the state entities should be responsible for coming up with alternative sources to help students with financial problems and to continue reducing tuition at ISU.

In addition to the list of Senate bills, former senator Alden Peterson, sophomore in industrial engineering, will be seated as GSB’s new election commissioner.

Continuing through Thanksgiving break, Ian Ringgenberg, director of student affairs and senior in anthropology, has been dealing with the issue of fences around campus, a topic that, in his mind, doesn’t seem to be losing any traction.

“We are having a forum and a campus walk next week to help address the issue,” Ringgenberg said. “I really think that it will be constructive. The issue is really two-fold – what we are trying to do now are make immediate changes that may take place next spring, and there are the plans to continue communications so that it doesn’t have to reach a crisis point for anyone to take action in the future.”