Iowa State Student Government election polls open Monday. Four of the seats on the ballot are represented by the College of Engineering. Kaleb Dunsbergen, a sophomore in aerospace engineering, is one of five candidates running to serve as a senator for the college.

Why do you feel you are qualified to represent the College of Engineering?

I have a really good feel both for what my fellow students want out of their education and the university, and I think I have a pretty good feel of what the university expects of its students. It is very much a bridge relationship that you have to go between as a Student Government representative. I have a ton of experience being the leader of projects in class, whether professor assigned or group voted on. For example, I led my freshman aerospace engineering group in building a drone. I was the team leader on that. I also have experience being a leader with the SALT company here at Iowa State. So helping freshmen get acquainted in the fall and just helping them along the way throughout their freshman year or sophomore year, depending on the student we are talking about. I think I have a really good sense of getting to know people and getting to know what they need. I also think I am good at knowing what they need and helping them be motivated to pursue what they need.

How do you plan to represent your constituents?

The role of a representative would be meeting with the engineering student council because they would hold me accountable, as well as I would plan on going live on my own personal Instagram or my campaign Instagram so any of my constituents can send ideas to me for what they are looking for out of the College of Engineering. 

What are some of the biggest issues that need to be addressed within the next year?

Right off the top, how do we reopen and do it safely, and balancing safety of students with the academic success of students. I think that has really been the core identity of this past year, that President [Wendy] Wintersteen and her team have been working on is finding a balance. I think they have done a really good job, and it is Student Government’s job to do the best they can in helping to assist in that transition. I think the university is going to be presented with a bunch of new challenges as they continue to reopen. Still, I think they have a lot of great opportunities to make changes that they either planned on making for a long time and now the pandemic is giving them the opportunity to change, or things we didn’t realize we need but we now need during the pandemic. I think the opportunities the university is going to have for moving forward and progressing is going to be absolutely tremendous.

What are some goals you would like to accomplish if elected?

My main campaign platform is the idea of innovation. That really is the slogan and the focus that the university has started to move toward, and I couldn’t agree more with that focus, I think moving toward its original intent. Being a land grant university and then a space-grant university, it was really about developing technology and developing products that could be used in the land. So whether that is agriculture engineering, mechanical engineering, the agricultural sciences, all of that stuff, the whole point of the moral land act was to get universities to start to innovate more. I think moving toward that innovation, whether that is getting as much for engineering clubs, but not just engineering but all clubs in general, getting as many funds to the clubs that are working on innovation in their own respective fields would probably be my number one goal; making really good use of the new capital and new resources with the Student Innovation Center as long as we can reopen that correctly.

Why is it crucial that the College of Engineering have an equal role in Student Government?

Engineering is one of the mainstays of Iowa State University. Its original intent was to focus on agricultural sciences and engineering. That is what the university was founded on, and you see a lot of that, whether you are in Parks Library, Beardshear Hall, you are in Marston Hall, there are a bunch of tributes to that being the original intent of the university. So, I think if we can perverse the original idea, that ultimately helps the university move forward.