The Government of the Student Body passed an amendment that would potentially change the name of its organization.

The proposal will be put to a vote by the student body in the coming elections to make a final decision on this matter. The change will not take effect until the end of the current term.

Hillary Kletscher, GSB president, said the plan has been in motion for several months and will help make several improvements from a public relations standpoint.

Kletscher said this would be an opportunity to better connect with the students.

Several senators pointed out the majority of the students did not know what GSB was, or what it did for the ISU student body.

“Our name is very different,” Kletscher said. “They know what student government is but not GSB. Students relate in the conversations better to Student Government than to GSB.”

Speaker Gabe Walsh agreed that GSB needed a rebranding because he said students are not receptive of GSB, as evidenced by the involvement of the student body with an 8 percent voter turnout in GSB elections. 

“I usually say ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,’ but I would say the system is a bit broken,” Walsh said. “Maybe this won’t affect it, but sitting and doing nothing isn’t what we should be doing.”

Sen. Richard Hartnett said GSB should not change the name, but instead do things that will bring in more senators and students into the GSB chamber.

Sen. Danielle Nygard agreed and said the rebrand will not solve GSB’s public relations issues.

Caitlin Deaver, director of visual media, said the rebrand would eliminate an unnecessary obstacle and make the name of GSB change to Student Government. 

“It’s putting the student before the government,” Deaver said. “It’s a small change, but it’s a big change that will really impact people.”

The amendment was voted on and passed. The final decision will be voted on by the student body during GSB elections.

GSB also voted on a bill that would not require the vice president to chair the weekly Senate meetings. The proposal failed in a majority vote.

In the past, the GSB vice president has been required to oversee the meetings. The new amendment would allow the vice president to designate a senator to chair the meetings.

Walsh said the vice president has chaired the meetings to break any ties in the vote on senate debates.

Sen. Abbie Lang said she would not want a vice president to vote on a tie-breaker in a debate if he or she had not been participating in the debate earlier.

Kletscher, who was GSB vice president last year, shared her perspective on the position.

“I did see it as a valuable growth opportunity,” Kletscher said. “However, it seems that their time is going to meetings instead of initiative. That’s not why students are voting for candidates.”

Sen. Hamad Abbas said most people run for vice president not to chair the meetings, but to do something for the student body.

“This is a meeting for the senate,” Abbas said. “I don’t see why another branch is chairing our meetings.”

The bill failed to pass.

GSB discussed an amendment to change certain senate actions.

One amendment they voted on changed the voting process in senate meetings. Previously, the bill required two-thirds majority of seated senators, which entails all senators in GSB.

This was replaced with a vote with majority of all voting senators, meaning senators who are present at the meetings.

Abbas said a vote should be counted by those who are present.

“If you’re not here, you should not count,” Abbas said. “There’s always valid excuses for missing the meeting, but it should not hurt what we have here.”

The bill failed by majority vote.

This was also the first GSB meeting in which the senators said the Pledge of Allegiance before beginning their order of business.

This is what was in at press time. Check online for the full story.