College of Liberal Arts and Sciences senator and junior in political science Lydia Greene is running to represent the student body of Iowa State as its Student Government President. 

Greene’s running mate for vice president is Joshua Hanyang, 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.” 

“I grew up in a very small town in Southeast Iowa,” Greene said. “My graduating class in high school was 22 kids, so very different from Iowa State. I chose Iowa State, though, I would say because I wanted a big change from my small community. I wanted to go to a school where no one would know my business before me kind of thing. Maybe that’s different than the position I am running for now, but generally, that’s why I chose it.”

Greene said she decided to run after she built up skills and to represent people who cannot represent themselves as easily.

“I decided to run because I started doing Student Government as a freshman; I was a legislative ambassador,” Greene said. “I figured that would be a great position for me because […] I already had the relationships in the legislature from when I was a page. […] The reason that I am running for student body president now is because I want to represent those who have not had as easy of a path to represent themselves as I have, and I want to use my ease of entrance to help the people like that.”

Additionally, Greene discussed what skills she had that would benefit her in the position of president.

“I don’t have any problem not liking me, and I don’t mean that in a student way; I mean that as an administration,” Greene said. “I will have no trouble telling them that, like our chalking policy, that’s negative to students obviously, so no, we cannot do that. I’ll have no trouble with that. I will also have no trouble telling the Board of Regents that it’s BS that we have not gotten more money than [the University of Northern Iowa (UNI)], even though we technically have more Iowa students that go to Iowa State, but it’s more per capita at UNI. So stuff like that, I will have no trouble telling the administration that that cannot slide.”

Greene will be one of the two presidential candidates debating Tuesday evening. For more information about the Greene-Hanyang campaign, you can go to their website or like their Facebook page Greene Hanyang 2020.