As students return to Colorado State University following their month-long winter breaks, members of the Associated Students Colorado State University are looking at the work ahead for the spring semester. For student body President Michael Wells and Vice President Cole Wise, that means transitioning into their roles in the executive branch.

“Coming into this new role, we wanted to look at the key things we had looked at last semester that just didn’t really follow through and the two big ones were really transparency and community,” Wells said.

According to Wells, the executive branch hopes to achieve these goals by hosting more events, such as an arts festival to highlight creativity. Other big spring semester ASCSU-sponsored events like mental health week, body acceptance week and the organization of the Diversity Symposium are also top priorities for Wells.

After talking to University administration, the executive branch also hopes to execute a departmental review of ASCSU.

“We want to give students more of an insight into what we do and keep the whole desk accountable so that we’re sticking up to what our mission is,” Wells said.

We want to give students more of an insight into what we do and keep the whole desk accountable so that we’re sticking up to what our mission is. Michael Wells, ASCSU President

According to Wise, whose role emphasizes the review of student fees, ASCSU also hopes to increase transparency regarding student fees.

“On our website we’re really working to make sure the student fees are accessible,” Wise said. “Right now, there are graphs you can see, but I want to expand that so that you can see all nineteen fee areas and their budgets.”

The ASCSU executive branch hopes to increase funding for the Board for Student Organization Funding, which is responsible for allocating financial resources to registered student organizations for educational and cultural programming and to administer relevant provisions of Article VIII of the ASCSU Constitution, according to ASCSU’s Department of Finance. Article VIII focuses on fiscal management of student fees and internal funding within ASCSU. 

The Wells-Wise administration hopes to be able to allocate some of that funding to host more campus events such as inviting speakers, like the head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama’s administration, to the University.

According to Wells, ASCSU is also looking to update their internal bylaws and guidelines alongside University administration. Wise also emphasized transparency between the branches of ASCSU on all legislative initiatives and goals for the semester so that the group can be more cohesive.

With this transparency in mind, Elections Manager Tyler Siri wants to update the ASCSU elections code as well in time for the elections later this spring.

Rather than solely focusing on internal issues, these updates to the elections code are intended to entice more people to join ASCSU and to provide more of a fair race in the spring elections, according to Wells. 

The Wells-Wise administration also emphasized two major issues that are ongoing in ASCSU: the study of U+2 and gameday operations on-campus. 

Since ASCSU passed the funding for the study of U+2, the body will now work with the City in order to gather the data so that students can understand what U+2 is really doing, according to Wise.

“There’s no solid timeframe at this point, but what I can say is that our community affairs department is really passionate about making sure that this is something that is seen through,” Wise said.

Another priority for ASCSU following fall semester is to enhance the game day experience following the opening season of the on-campus stadium.  

“As far as game day goes, we’re really looking at how to increase membership at the 12th Ram, the student tailgating lot. That’s through things like reorganizing the lot, bringing our own entertainment,” Wise said. “We want to get student input from people that actually went to the events and incorporating that into our report.”

Collegian reporter Natalia Sperry can be reached at news@collegian.com or Twitter @natalia_sperry.