Lydia Greene, junior in political science, and Joshua Hanyang, senior in management information systems, are running for Student Government president and vice president on a five-point platform.

The platform breaks down to 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.”

Diversity and Inclusion

Within diversity and inclusion, Greene and Hanyang have five smaller points: having two co-directors of diversity and inclusion in Student Government, having sponsored change in the diversity requirement, creating optional Destination Iowa State (DIS) groups for LGBTQIA+ community members, more diversified question drop downs for Iowa State University websites and hosting “Building Our Community” events.

Greene said the idea for having co-directors of diversity and inclusion in Student Government came from after they attended the Students Against Racism meeting in the fall. 

“[After attending the meeting,] we realized the students don’t have as much representation in Student Government, and so we thought, ‘Well, their issues are also not getting addressed when we went to their meetings as well,’” Greene said. “They talked a lot about spectrum and some issues that the LGBTQ groups see that I have never even been informed about in Student Government.”

Another idea Greene and Hanyang are expanding upon are the diversity credits required for students.

“The current requirements for ISU students are three credits in International Perspectives and three credits in Diversity requirements,” according to Greene and Hanyang’s campaign website. “We want to expand the three-credit requirements to six credits in Diversity in order to reduce campus climate issues. This would also help expand credits required outside of major-required classes, which can be beneficial for more rigorous majors.”

Furthermore, Greene and Hanyang want to create optional DIS groups for students of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“This was something that we had, we’d seen a lot of identity groups who had been coming to DIS, specifically the spectrum community and other groups like that, who had already kind of found people similar to them,” Hanyang said. “But there wasn’t really an official grouping for it.”

The next key point Greene and Hanyang discussed was creating diversified question drop downs for Iowa State websites.

“On any applications that the university uses, all of the gender drop-down options need to be inclusive,” Greene said. “It won’t cost the university any more money, we’re not really sure they’re not already doing that. Inclusivity is obviously a main goal with our campaign, so we just feel that the university needs to be taking these steps.”

The last point within their diversity and inclusion group is continuing to host “Building Our Community” events.

“We wanted to foster good relationships within our multicultural communities and then also within our student leaders because — as a predominantly white institution — we tend to be very focused on bettering our student leaders, but some of those aren’t equipped with the right tools to begin with,” Hanyang said.

Mental Health Awareness

Within mental health awareness, Greene and Hanyang are looking to introduce two large initiatives: automated scheduling for Student Counseling Services and de-stressor deals.

“When you go into [Student] Counseling Services, they give you a 90-minute questionnaire, and we feel that’s a deterrent for students,” Greene said. “We want them to be able to fill that out in the safety of their own home or wherever they feel comfortable. So whenever they need to go in, or it’s most comfortable for them, they can go in and be seen more rapidly.”

Hanyang said this idea came from their experience seeing students who knew Student Counseling Services existed and listening to them ask for the process to go in to be more simplified.

“We would like to see less people in the waiting room and more people being seen, basically,” Greene said.

Additionally, Greene and Hanyang want to work with local businesses and departments on campus to get “health and wellness-focused discounts” for students during Prep Week, formerly known as Dead Week.

“De-stressor deals is a way to get students out and thinking about their own health instead of necessarily the classes,” Hanyang said. “Although academics is such an important part about that, it’s just the stress does rise and students will need a break during that week.”

Green Initiatives

Within their green initiatives ideas, Greene and Hanyang want to expand solar lighting on campus, expand residence hall recycling competitions, increase solar charging stations throughout campus and increase paper and recycled dining materials.

“This past year in Student Government, I was on a solar lighting bill,” Greene said. “So we worked with [Facilities Planning and Management] to light up some places on campus that were identified by students on campus during safety walks where they feel unsafe; it’s not well lit enough. But obviously working with [Facilities Planning and Management], you have to keep the beauty of the university in mind.”

Greene and Hanyang said they decided on solar lights because they will be more sustainable in the long term while it might be expensive at first.

Currently, three lights on campus are going to be implemented, but Greene said they hope to expand that.

As well, Greene and Hanyang want to expand on already current residence hall competitions that promote recycling.

“Our idea was for this, seeing some halls do this, some don’t, that we want to do this more campus-wide,” Hanyang said.

Greene and Hanyang said they want to eventually expand this to an Ames-wide effort.

In addition, increasing the amount of solar charging stations on campus is an idea of their campaign.

“We want [to add them] to areas that students are already going to visit and they’re going to be at,” Hanyang said. “Just so that if you’re somewhere with your friends and you need to charge, it’s more readily accessible. We understand that with investing in this renewable energy, if we get students to see that this is similar to the trash compactors and stuff, we see that we’re investing in renewable energy and sustainability on campus.”

Finally, Greene and Hanyang want to increase paper and recycled dining materials with ISU Dining.

“When we met with ISU Dining, the first thing that we told them was the cups that are by the microwave in the MU (Memorial Union) are plastic,” Greene said. “They said it hadn’t been brought to their attention and that they were going to work on changing that directly. So that was kind of our initial plastic part, and we like to continue to see them move away from [plastic].”

Student Government Transparency

When it comes to Student Government, Greene and Hanyang want to create a Question Hotline and expand upon the already current Fireside Chats.

“Students always have questions about what Student Government is and where Student Government can help them,” Hanyang said. “And oftentimes, students might have one very specific question on what Student Government is doing […]. I would definitely say the problem with this is it goes generally to everyone […] but having a link to say ‘If you have questions about this, I can’t answer everything, but here is this link.’”

Hanyang said this would streamline the process and help students get in contact with the proper individuals the question pertains to quicker. This hotline would also be accessible through the Student Government website.

When it comes to Fireside Chats, Greene and Hanyang said they would like to see them expand to be more club-focused and allow students to share what they’re doing and their passions.

“I do think that with our current videos that they’re very informative, but they get kind of lengthy,” Hanyang said. “We would like to make sure that we are still providing all the details but that we can have edits of the videos on social media that are quicker for students to watch so they can get the run down, and then they’re forwarded to where they can get more information.”

ISU 101

ISU 101 would be a one-credit, half-semester course that focuses on providing students with in-depth information about mental health resources, information about educational resources, LGBTQIA+ and other inclusivity training, rental and tenant guides for future years on campus and financial training as an extension of Cash Course through Canvas.

“It’s optional at this point, but we’re laying the groundwork for it so it would be required later on,” Hanyang said. “The general idea with this is that we want students to know about their resources and opportunities right from the start of their education instead of right up to it. We think that Orientation, Destination Iowa State and the online courses that they have to take do a good job of explaining stuff before students really come to the university, but then we want to make sure that the first semester is a good, comfortable transition for them.”

More information about the Greene and Hanyang campaign can be found on their campaign website.