Editor’s Note: This is the first profile of the Government of the Student Body presidential and vice presidential candidates. A different slate will be featured each day until Friday . GSB elections are Feb. 16-18.

If elected Government of the Student Body president and vice president, Bryan Burkhardt and Jamal White said they will continue this year’s GSB success by making it representative of the entire Iowa State student body.

Burkhardt is a junior in computer engineering from Des Moines, and White is a senior in metallurgical engineering from Washington, D.C.

Burkhardt and White said the executive race, which will be held Feb. 16-18, is a means of improving students’ involvement with GSB.

“We’re really trying to encompass everyone. We’ve tried to talk to people from every sector of the university population,” White said.

Burkhardt said the team plans to maintain this year’s success of GSB, and their chief mission is to give all students a voice.

“Good things are going on in GSB this year, and I hope Jamal and I will continue the upward rise. We are committed to serving students, listening and making ISU better for all students, not just one particular group,” he said.

Burkhardt is a GSB senator for the College of Engineering and is involved with the finance committee. He also is chair of the senate discretionary oversight committee and is a representative to the asset committee.

Aside from GSB, Burkhardt is a former assistant business manager of Team PrISUm and is a Veishea scholar, as well as adviser to the Presidential Leadership Class. In addition, he has been involved with Homecoming for the past three years.

White has been a senator for the College of Engineering for nearly three semesters and is a member of the senate judiciary committee.

Outside GSB, White is a resident assistant in Towers Residence Association and director of university relations for Black Student Alliance.

He also is on the Martin Luther King planning committee and was a Freshman Honors Sections co-leader last fall.

Burkhardt and White said they have a lot of plans to execute if elected president and vice president.

Burkhardt said many of their plans are expansions of current GSB programs. One program they want to see continued is the semester textbook exchange.

“There was a fair turnout this year, and we want to promote it better on campus,” Burkhardt said. “It’s an efficient and useful way to sell back books, so we want people to utilize that.”

White said community outreach projects also rank high in importance because they unite students.

“We are very committed to getting people involved in organizations and to come together to build a stronger campus,” he said.

The team also is considering a revision of instructor evaluations. “If students are going to take the time to fill them out, we want it to be productive for them,” Burkhardt said.

He said evaluations distributed at mid-semester would be more effective because students could benefit from their comments while taking the course.

Burkhardt and White said they plan to devise a student fees survey to determine which campus issues are important to students.

They said survey results also would show how students want their money spent.

“We want to prioritize the right services and ideas, and organize and tabulate the information for the administration,” Burkhardt said. “We want to accurately represent the students needs.”

Another aspect of their platform is the improvement of the lighting on central campus.

“The quality of lighting on campus is poor and a lot of individuals don’t feel safe in those areas,” White said. “We are working hard to increase lighting there.”

Burkhardt said they also support ideas for a multicultural or activities building to increase student meeting locations.

“It is crucial to provide more physical space for groups to gather for meetings or social events and to have a place to cook,” Burkhardt said.

The team also mentioned plans to help students adjust to rising tuition costs, which are a major concern in the ISU community.

“We would like to develop a three- to five-year plan to help students cope with the inevitable costs of rising tuition,” Burkhardt said.

He said if students document their needs, they can prioritize where the money should go.

“The Board of Regents would be a lot more receptive with that kind of data,” Burkhardt said.

Burkhardt and White added that they want to improve the relationship between the student body and GSB.

“We want to reach out to different groups on campus — people in the resident halls, the greek system and off campus — and make GSB representative of the entire student body,” White said.

“GSB is on an upswing now, and we want to help continue that,” White said. “I’ve succeeded as a senator and I want to continue as vice president.”

Burkhardt added that students should take advantage of their right to vote.

“We believe we do have a fair chance of winning, but we want to help students. That is what’s important to us,” he said. “A successful campaign for us would be just getting people out to vote.”