As elections for control over one of the largest student budgets in the nation continue throughout the week, nine candidates running for office in UCSU met from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in Humanities 1B50 to deliberate feasible, cost efficient and diverse ways for the university’s student body to succeed.
Six members of the FOCUS ticket were present at a debate Monday that covered the issues of campus sustainability, student fees, student involvement and engagement with the community. Three independent candidates, one of whom was part of the Arts ands Sciences student government, were also present.
While speaking to a nearly empty auditorium, all candidates expressed the hope that participation from a greater portion of the student body would characterize future UCSU debates.
The FOCUS platform, as iterated by their candidates, is to assemble a ticket of experienced and dedicated students who aim to accurately represent CU’s diversity while exercising fiscal responsibility with regard to the millions of dollars that student fees bring in.
When members of the FOCUS ticket were asked why they were qualified to be UCSU representatives at large, senior political science major Will Taylor said, “We are going to continue to excel in everything we do.”
For the constituency as a whole, senior international affairs major Blaine Pellicore, one of the candidates for the FOCUS ticket and current president of UCSU’s Legislative Council, said he would like to bring more student involvement to the organization.
“The root cause is to get people excited and to get people running for these positions,” Pellicore said.
When asked how his ticket intended to accomplish their goals if elected, Pellicore opted to explain a new system similar to the student government at CSU, where students could register a house party in advance notice.
In case a noise violation is called, a person at the party would be notified and the party would be given 30 minutes to shut down. Pellicore said that this could positively impact police costs and time.
Shane Grigsby, a geography and philosophy major and a transfer student in between his junior and senior year, expressed his capacity in representing a large sample of the CU population in regards to his affiliation with graduate and Ph.D. students.
Asked about his long term plans for the student government, Grigsby said he would like to see the administration open up in terms of transparency of its budgeting process and hopes that CU student groups become more user friendly.
Grigsby explained that the cornerstone of his platform centered on his desire to cap or reduce the cost of health care services at Wardenburg.
“I don’t have all that much of a problem with student fees increasing proportional to inflation, but I do when they get out of control, which they have been,” Grigsby said.
Nick Smiley, a sophomore political science, philosophy, international affairs and Spanish major and an independent candidate, said he opted to run this year because of the changes he’d like to see on campus.
“I think the number one reason is to change the way we operate on campus and I think I can help with that. It was best to embody a new perspective while independent candidates are necessary for real change,” Smiley said.
Smiley said during the debate that while he doesn’t necessarily have the expertise the members of the FOCUS ticket have, he does personally harbor more passion for the CU community and he’d like to be an integral part of upping the energy level at this school.
“I think we need to challenge ourselves to be more ambitious,” Smiley said. “I think that’s primarily why I’m running. We can function in a greater capacity within the student body by increasing our energy level.”
Smiley’s arguments centered on uniting students across campus in order to reach beyond Boulder and into the state community at large.
“I think we need to step outside the status quo and try to tackle larger issues within the state legislature and even talk to people such as Jared Polis and Mark Udall,” Smiley said. “If we don’t reach out as students in Colorado then there’s no way we can enact change nation-wide.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sheila Kumar at Sheila.v.kumar@colorado.edu.
