If elected, Government of the Student Body president and vice president Ben Studenski and Chris Robert said they will focus on a variety of student issues, from student fees to increasing student awareness of GSB.

“One of our big issues is the student fee refund,” said Robert, sophomore in computer engineering. “For example, there is about $200,000 in the special projects account that is all student fees, and that hasn’t been spent by GSB in previous years. We feel that if the GSB doesn’t spend all the money, it should be given back to the students.”

Studenski, senior in industrial engineering, said the issue is important because of the effect it has on students.

“Some things we are working on affect all students,” he said. “For instance, extra money goes into the special projects account, and interest on the money goes to the administration. The students would probably rather have the money back than let it sit there and let the interest go to the administration.”

Robert said he and Studenski also are focusing on a variety of other issues, such as tuition and student involvement.

Robert currently is vice president of the Union Drive Association and an engineering senator for GSB. He also was a North Helser Hall representative for the Inter-Residence Hall Association.

Studenski was a University Student Apartment Community senator in GSB in fall of 1997 and was a Daily columnist for three semesters. He also helped to organize some large lectures as part of his campus activities.

Robert said one of the ways he and Studenski would like to increase voter involvement is through expanding the GSB Web page.

“The current GSB Web page is horribly outdated,” he said. “If a student wants information on GSB, they won’t get much use from the GSB Web page. Students might not even be able to find out who is representing them.”

Studenski said he and Robert also would like to address diversity on campus.

“We don’t want to follow the Ivy League’s model of diversity. They had separate dorms and policies that restricted student freedoms and worked to separate them,” he said. “We want an environment where people can mix more and not have their freedom of speech restricted.”

If elected, the team also plans to address the issue of rising tuition costs.

“We want to keep the tuition increase as low as possible. We plan to do lots and lots of lobbying,” Studenski said. “We would also like to come up with our own proposal, backed up with facts, and get it to the office of the Board of Regents really early so that they have our ideas first.

“If they don’t listen to us next year, then we will immediately start lobbying them for the next year,” he said. “Basically, we plan to be as annoying as possible until they start listening.”

Studenski said another one of their goals is to represent student opinions.

“GSB does not really address issues of interest to the students,” he said.

Studenski said the lack of focus on student issues is the reason students are not involved with GSB.

“Student leaders are actually pretty accessible,” he said. “The students are just not talking to them because they don’t seem them involved in anything related to their lives.”

Studenski said he is looking forward to the campaign.

“I think this will be one of the most cleanest and most upbeat campaigns. Most people are negative towards the other candidates, but we want to be more positive with our campaign,” he said. “Our goal is to focus more on the issues and not try to make the others look bad.”

Studenski said their main goal is to always put the students first.

“The bottom line is we realize that it’s not just five or six groups that we are concerned about,” he said. “It’s 25,000 individuals.”