Despite internal chaos due to the upcoming March elections, the Government of the Student Body is determined to accomplish its goals for the new semester.

GSB plans to tackle a wide range of issues, from lighting on campus to the future of the Memorial Union, said GSB President Bryan Burkhardt.

One of GSB’s major plans is a visit to the state capitol building, Burkhardt said.

“The trip is currently planned for early February, and we will be going along with the student governments of the University of Northern Iowa and the University of Iowa,” he said.

Burkhardt said one of the goals of the trip will be to address concerns about the state Board of Regents.

“One of the things we hope to discuss with the Legislature is modifying the structure of the Board of Regents,” he said.

Another related goal will be to form a more efficient tuition committee, Burkhardt said.

“At the Board of Regents meeting this fall, we found that we had a definite advantage because of our extensive amount of preparation,” he said. “The more research we can do to develop data from other universities will give us a strong argument in keeping tuition costs as low as possible.”

Among other goals, GSB will be working with the administration to discuss the future of the Memorial Union, Burkhardt said.

“We don’t really have much of a decision making power when it comes to making changes to the Union,” he said. “Rather, what we want to do is get suggestions from students on how to improve the MU.”

Burkhardt said improvement of campus lighting has also been an important issue to GSB.

“What I want to do is to take the data from the lighting survey that was conducted in the fall and merge that with the cost list developed by Facilities Planning and Management,” he said.

“I hope GSB can develop a package that we can partially fund and that the administration will fund out of year-end monies to make an advancement to solving this ongoing problem,” Burkhardt said.