The sole candidates for president and vice president of the Government of the Student Body hosted a small open forum Tuesday night in Hoover Hall.

Presidential candidate Brian Phillips, junior in political science, and vice presidential candidate Ian Guffy, senior in computer science, presented to nine students, two who were members of the election commission.

According to GSB rules, two debates are required to be held during the presidential election season.

“Students deserve to know what’s going on,” Phillips said at the beginning of the forum.

In light of the recent stir regarding Phillips’ and Guffy’s being the sole candidates on the ballot this year, Phillips said the process was decided by the election commission, and they are willing to abide by that.

“Those are the rules we play by,” Phillips said.

The “Phillips/Guffy Plan,” as outlined on cards the candidates handed out to attendees, consists of three broad goals, which Phillips described as going “back to the basics” for GSB.

Those three goals are improving communication between students and GSB, reining in tuition by lobbying state legislators and improving Campustown.

To reach the goal of improving communication, Phillips and Guffy said they would like to inform students early about the services available to them.

Orientation classes which present GSB’s services to students at an early stage of their education were instituted in the fall of 2006 by the senate public relations committee.

Phillips and Guffy would like to eventually see a presentation of GSB’s services to all freshman orientation classes, Guffy said.

As for “reining in tuition,” Phillips said, in light of his experience as a clerk with the Iowa Legislature, the governing body hasn’t been in college for awhile.

“We need to show that there is a need [concerning tuition],” Phillips said.

“We’re only 35 minutes from the Capitol here.”

He said he would like to see as many people at the Capitol as possible on lobbying days.

Once, Phillips said, he showed his U-Bill to a legislator, and she was “astonished.”

Aside from increasing communication with students and GSB and improving communication between ISU students in general and the state Legislature, Phillips said they still need to improve Campustown.

“We’ve just scratched the surface of things we can do,” he said.

Phillips would like to focus on event planning rather than business because that’s where GSB’s abilities to impact Campustown lie.

“[Sometimes] students think that GSB is trying to promise them the sun, the moon and the stars. We’re not,” Guffy said.

“We’re just GSB. But there are things we can do, and we should do them.”