The Government of the Student Body elections are drawing near, and GSB President Bryan Burkhardt and Vice President Jamal White have had nearly a year to accomplish what they promised in their election platform.

One item that has characterized Burkhardt and White’s executive term is their emphasis on the George Washington Carver celebration.

“I think that one of reasons we tied on to the GWC celebration so firmly was because we immediately began thinking of ways to devise new and different opportunities for students,” Burkhardt said.

White also said he was pleased with the success of the GWC celebration.

“It’s something that’s been pushed heavily this past year,” he said. “I think it’s good that the administration has embraced it as well. It’s something for them to be proud of, and students as well.”

Lighting on campus was another issue of concentration for Burkhardt and White.

“We are certainly not done with discussions with the administration on that issue,” Burkhardt said. “We have already begun to make increased awareness on the issue, and we have somewhat successfully drawn awareness to areas and issues. We also made comments encouraging the city to look into their lighting issues.”

White said lighting is an important matter.

“It’s something that we would like to get done before the end of the semester, hopefully as soon as possible,” he said. “We also succeeded in getting a bill in special projects for the amounts required for various areas to be improved.”

Working toward a student multicultural center was another part of their platform, Burkhardt said.

“The discussion of a multicultural center has moved as student opinion has moved,” he said. “Instead of a multicultural center, we’ve addressed more basic issues at hand in brainstorming and trying to identify areas for more programming space for students and their organizations.”

Burkhardt said significant improvement has also been made in accosting student fees.

“One of things that we commented on was trying to do a survey for students so we could identify where student fees money should go,” he said. “We wanted to make sure GSB and student leaders are adequately informed about where students want their money spent.”

Burkhardt and White also promised to work on improving the textbook exchange.

“We totally revamped the way textbook exchange was run from the year before us,” he said. “We made that totally online and were able to provide a more interactive textbook exchange.”

Burkhardt said this made it more convenient for students.

“I hope it will continue each semester from now on,” he said. “We even had calls from other schools around the country who wanted to do the same thing.”

White said he has seen a definite improvement in the senate and GSB’s reputation as a whole.

“We’ve been able to actually improve the image of GSB further in terms of letting people know what GSB is about,” White said.

White said although he is pleased with what has been accomplished so far, there are additional changes that could be made.

“When you set out for certain goals, I don’t think you can ever really accomplish everything you’d like to accomplish in the time that you have,” he said. “However, I’m not at all disappointed with what we’ve been able to do and accomplish this year.”