Campaigns for the Associated Students of Colorado State University elections for the 2025-26 academic year are underway. The Collegian sat down with presidential and vice presidential candidates Jakye Nunley and Abraham Mapatano to discuss their backgrounds, campaign platform and future plans.

Nunley is a junior studying business administration and currently serves as student body president. Nunley is running for reelection. Mapatano is a junior studying economics and is running for student body vice president.

Background, ASCSU experience, qualifications

Nunley: I currently serve as ASCSU Student Body President, but to backtrack, I am hailing all the way from Aurora, Colorado. I currently am a junior studying business administration. I concentrate in management and innovation, as well as human resources.

I’ve been a part of a plethora of different clubs and organizations here on campus. United Men of Color being one; the Lory Student Center Governing Board being one. I’m a part of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated; I currently serve as the vice president of that organization. … I’ve formerly served as the chief of staff, and then before that, the deputy director of health for ASCSU. And I volunteer for the American Cancer Society.

Mapatano: I’m from Colorado Springs, Colorado. … I’ve been the president of the Marketing Association. I’ve been part of the Dean’s Leadership Council.
I was also part of (United Men of Color) — where I met Jakye — as a social media manager. I currently am in the Reisher Scholarship Program. I’m also in the Honors Program.
I am going to be an economics leadership ambassador here in the College of Liberal Arts, and I run a student digital marketing agency called Mapatano Company.

My qualifications primarily stand on the academic enterprise side, so the reason why I’m running with Jakye Nunley is because his ability to bring people together is so unique, and I think my ability comes to capitalize on those people being there. And so it’s a unique combination of community and mobilization that allows things like ASCSU to be so meaningful, letting us create great change, not only in our time but in generations to come at CSU.

Campaign, campus issues, priorities

Nunley: We focus on four different pillars, those pillars being belonging in engagement, humanization, postgrad outlook and leadership. So all of these things kind of make up this huge platform of building bridges to a better CSU.

Essentially, our platform is meant to establish better relationships that humanize each other, from peer to peer, from peer to administrators, peer to community and peer to world. … We have a lot of external resources here in Fort Collins, and we have a community that is ready to support us, they just don’t know how.

In the peer-to-peer world, Abraham does a really great job of focusing on the academic enterprise and how the translation of the CSU degree will shine beyond getting this degree. … So that’s a high-level overview, and then we have specific initiatives as well.

Mapatano: My main focus is on the academic enterprise and how your CSU degree is applicable past graduation. So something I’m really focused on is student-workforce development acts that will be able to give students real-world work while they’re still in college. This looks like things like a criminal justice major being able to go to D.C. for six weeks; you get experience there. It looks like a construction major able to work on the site and directly connect those companies with the students that need these opportunities.

So that on top of being able to slowly get infrastructure for the AI that’s coming to us.
I think that AI is something that, whether we like it or not, is here, and being able to educate students on how to sustainably use that in a system that not only gets you to generate essays from ChatGPT, but it allows you to use it for real work that you can get paid for.

A lot of the stuff that I’m focused on as the vice president is being able to produce more competent workers that can enjoy their CSU degree postgrad and make sure that this feels like the best decision of their lives.

ASCSU-student relationship, future goals

Nunley: As I’m running for reelection, there are many things that I can reflect on. What I can say is that the Nunley-Godshall administration did an exceptionally well job with student engagement. We have a Student Fee Review Board that is fully full, and I say that to say that hasn’t happened in years. We’ve had an uptick in first-year engagement; we’ve hosted some of the largest cabinet meetings that our advisers have seen to date.

But what I will say is that, you know, like, we’ve had an uptick in engagement from students, from freshman to graduate students, even. Student engagement, of course, will always look different and varies as a problem. But what will remain consistent about the Nunley-Mapatano administration is the outreach. I think that to know me and to know Abe is to know leadership and to know that we are connectors. Good people know good people, and I want to bring good people in to do good things, and ASCSU is usually, most of the time, doing good things.

I think that one of our priority areas, too, is also our student-athletes. I think student athletes is a huge missed group, and that ASCSU usually does not target or do any programming or invite them into the space or invite their voices in. So we’ve done a really good job in the past about first-year engagement this year, fraternity and sorority life engagement, even. We done a lot. We now need to invite athletes into the conversation as well because they have a unique student experience that oftentimes goes missed.

Mapatano: I think that a lot of stuff that has happened at ASCSU in the past year, especially with the Nunley-Godshall administration, has been excellent in building these great building blocks.

What I will say is that, as we continue to grow, it’s about integration. Being able to connect with student-athletes, being able to connect with cultural centers, being able to bring the community together to where ASCSU doesn’t feel like this awkward hanging student government arm that’s hyper-professional and doesn’t interact with people, but it feels like something that is just as day to day as you calling someone that you need help with something. It’s something that appeared to be a resource; it’s not something here to stop (and) stand on top of you.

I really want people’s perception of ASCSU to be something as a resource and an excellent resource at that, that they’re not afraid to call upon and to advocate with as we continue to grow and to fight for better bills, better funding and better initiatives that make the CSU degree worth it and your college experience the best it’s ever been.

Reach  Laila Shekarchian at news@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.