A native of Des Moines, Iowa, and senior in entrepreneurship, Joshua Hanyang is running to represent the student body of Iowa State as its Student Government vice president.

Hanyang’s running mate for president is Lydia Greene, and together, they are running on a platform of diversity and inclusion, mental health awareness, green initiatives, student government transparency and an initiative to implement a one-credit, half-semester course called “ISU 101.”

“When I decided to run for student body vice president along with Lydia, I just wanted to continue to bring the ideas of Student Government back to students first and bring it so that we had that feedback from the people who pay tuition here, who are involved in programs and all that sort of stuff,” Hanyang said. “The couple of years I have been here, I felt like Student Government had done a lot of great things, but they weren’t communicating them effectively out.”

Hanyang said he believed that the most important issue facing students is either mutual understanding or community.

“I’ve seen a lot of students who are upset or distraught about things with sustainability or campus climate and the inclusion of their identities with free speech with organization funding, and it all boils down to one thing, and that’s awareness about the community. And I think that students know what they’re going through, and that’s really important to them, but seeing that bigger picture of ‘How do the different parts of our university fit together?,’ and even our administration sometimes loses focus about the priorities of students and needs those student leaders to come together and tell them, ‘Hey, we need you to continue to prioritize students,’” Hanyang said.

Before he was an elected senator, Hanyang was a tech worker who recorded the streams of Student Government Senate meetings. He said he got interested in the process because at times, he felt like the student perspective was missing, and he wanted to hear how the students felt about issues as well.

Additionally, Hanyang said experiences outside of Student Government put him in a good position to relate to students.

“I have a multitude of experiences, ranging from academics to social experiences as being a Cyclone Aide, being part of an organization like the Iowa State Singers, being in a leadership role as a treasurer for that, seeing things that most student leaders go through, but then also students that aren’t as involved go through as well,” Hanyang said. “Struggling through basic math classes, changing your major, all those sort of things I had seen, and I had seen students who had gone through it along with me.”

Hanyang will be one of the three vice-presidential candidates in the debate. The debate will start at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Cardinal Room of the Memorial Union.