Feeling that he and Vice President Cody West accomplished all that they had promised, Student Government President Cole Staudt is ready to move on.

But the long hours and loss of sleep were all worth it to him.

What he and West did gain, however, were skills to lead the masses as well as a better view of how the world works.

“Everyone has their own agenda and desires for community whether you are university administration, you are faculty or students,” Staudt said. “Everyone has their own ideas and how do you get those ideas to work together.”

As West and Cody Smith are inaugurated as the new president and vice president Thursday, Staudt will say goodbye after leading the student body through what he described as a controversial year.

“Overall, it’s been a challenging year,” Staudt said. “We’ve had a lot of controversies just campus-wide, whether that be President Leath’s plane scandal or the issues around the election … I think it has been a real challenge.”

Among the controversies, Staudt and West have accomplished all of their main promises from their presidential campaigning over a year ago. This included implementing a new dead week policy, starting a town hall and working with legislators to get a medical amnesty bill passed.

West led the battle to amend the old dead week policy, eventually getting it passed through Faculty Senate in February.

Dead Week, the week before Finals Week begins, is meant to allow students to have an adequate, expected amount of time to study for their finals.

Staudt and West surveyed the student body, finding in approximately 6,000 responses, about 80 percent expressed frustrations about testing during Dead Week.

The amendment that Student Government proposed forbade professors from giving exams, tests and quizzes during the Thursday and Friday of Dead Week.

Staudt and West also implemented town hall meetings that gave the Iowa State community a platform to voice how they feel Student Government can do a better job of representing the student body.

“[The town hall] was just supposed to be a State of the Student Body address and then go into what we can do as Student Government to make Iowa State a more inclusive campus,” West said.

Just a week before the town hall, white heritage posters were found on campus, which completely changed the content of the discussion. Students were upset with the university’s reaction to the posters and voiced these concerns at the town hall. 

As West moves on to become the next student body president, he wants to continue to host these town halls but include a proactive approach as well.

This year, Staudt and West were mainly putting these events together on their own. West feels that town halls could run smoother and happen more regularly if all of Student Government pitched in.

Staudt took a special interest in the promise to help get a medical amnesty bill passed through the Iowa Legislature. He was motivated by an experience where he wanted to get a struggling friend medical attention but feared getting trouble for underage drinking.

If passed into law, Iowans who experience medical emergencies due to underage alcohol consumption will be immune to legal consequences, allowing them to get help without fear of prosecution.

“It could affect any of us. No one should go into college feeling unsafe,” Speaker Danielle Nygard said.

The bill – SF 415 – passed unanimously through the Iowa Senate on March 15 and will now continue to the Iowa House of Representatives before it will go on to be signed by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad.

Michael Snook, Student Government finance director, served as vice speaker last year and was part of the effort to push for medical amnesty at the university level. The thought was to get protection for Iowa State students.

When Staudt and West were brought on, Snook said “they really ran with it” and started to work on it at the state level last spring.

“It was much beyond the scope imagined,” Snook said.

Staudt and West are still very hopeful about this bill after its recent success in the Senate.

“It looks like it’s got a pretty bright future ahead of it, so that’s exciting,” Vice President-elect Smith said.

Snook said that there may be potential for the inclusion of medical amnesty in the case of drug usage in the future.

“I would encourage future Student Government members to pursue this,” Snook said.

Staudt does have one regret when looking back at how he handled the Big 12 expansion chaos.  

In September 2016, the Student Government passed a resolution that came out against the potential addition of Brigham Young University to the Big 12 Conference – a bill Staudt opposed.

The resolution made the claim to administration that “BYU’s discriminatory policies and practices are inconsistent with the values of the Big 12.”

This claim was made based on opposition to BYU’s Honor Code, which forbids students from having sexual relations with individuals of the same sex, as well as all other forms of intimacy that may “give expression to homosexual feelings.”

Staudt expressed his opposition to the bill, agreeing with presidents of other Big 12 universities who believed that a stance shouldn’t be taken at all, and that the Big 12 doesn’t make change by excluding people.

Looking back, Staudt said that the debate that day got a little out of hand. He wishes it would have been handled it better.

“What’s done is done, and in the grand scheme of things, it was really a minor incident,” Staudt said.

The president and vice president both agreed that days when such big news comes out are the worst days.

Iowa State President Steven Leath’s announcement of his departure was the most recent instance of this. The announcement led to all the publications in the area wanting them to provide comment. West even had to skip class to speak with KCCI.

All the work that they put in this position was not simply to put something on their résumé or to get a leg up when looking for jobs after graduation, they said.

“If you’re doing this to put it on your résumé and for the title, you’re obviously in it for the wrong reasons, and I don’t think you truly know the scope of the position because once you actually get into it and you start working, it’s really hard not get burned out on it,” West said.

This time commitment has given them a unique experience many college students won’t experience.

He expressed that this discouragement is at its highest when initiatives that he has been pushing all year don’t come to fruition.

Despite all of this, West is ready for another year of leading Student Government to work on the things he is passionate about to better Iowa State.