Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of three profiles on the Government of the Student Body executive slate candidates.

Two Government of the Student Body executive hopefuls are using their outsider status to bring new opinions and accountability to the table.

Unlike the other two slates, which have both had GSB experience, Mitchell Hayek and running mate Dustin Paulson are using their inexperience to gain campus support.

“Out with the old and in with the new,” Paulson said.

Hayek said their lack of experience is part of their concept of a new deal for ISU students.

Their premise is that more students outside of GSB need to be given a voice within the student government — a voice they hope to usher in.

Occasional town hall meetings would allow students to have direct involvement in GSB matters if the two are elected, said Paulson, sophomore in plant health and protection.

“Chances are, 26,000 other minds might catch something that we missed,” he said.

These two are not without student government experience, however. Hayek is president of Maple Hall, and Paulson is the secretary for Maple Hall student government.

The pair also has past leadership experience. Hayek said he was the Jesup FFA chapter treasurer, and Paulson said he was Muscatine FFA president and an attendee of the FFA leadership conference in Washington.

Although largely unknown among student government circles, Hayek and Paulson said they needed little help to get the 1,500 signatures required to be included on the ballot for the March 7 and 8 elections.

“I got the opportunity to meet people outside of my general area and my classes,” Hayek said of getting the signatures. “I loved it.”

Hayek, junior in agricultural biochemistry, said the platform on which they are running includes five general areas: increased lobbying at the Capitol, making GSB more accountable for “budget woes,” making it cheaper for students to live on campus, making it easier for students to participate in GSB and working with ISU administrators on Veishea concerns.

The budget would be a key issue for the candidates, Hayek said, because checks and balances on GSB’s budget of roughly $1.5 million need to be put in place.

“We feel clubs are responsible enough to use it the way they see fit,” Paulson said. “I think that they would understand that GSB money would not be for inappropriate things.”

One way the two plan to save money is by increasing occupancy rates in the residence halls, Hayek said. He said a commission could be formed to investigate the price disparity between on- and off-campus living and greek life.

“We want to make the residence halls more competitive,” Paulson said. “That way, there isn’t a mass exodus from the halls.”

The two said after all of the renovations to the residence halls, it is imperative for students to live there. If not enough money is made from residence halls, it’s going to come either from tuition or taxes, Hayek said.

“It’s a lose-lose situation unless we create more of an equilibrium between them,” Hayek said.

If their goals are going to work, it will be contingent upon communication with the students of Iowa State, which is the major focus of their new deal, Paulson said.

“Communication is key, it really is,” he said.