Video by Chapman Croskell

Setting the standard is among the main priorities of the Tristan Syron and Kevin Sullivan campaign this Associated Students of Colorado State University election season. 

The two have campaigned on the Plaza this week with their slogan, “Setting the Standard.” Syron responded to why this is their chosen branding. 

“Standards have been disregarded,” Syron said. 

Syron went on to cite academic and parking expectations as two examples of those disregarded standards. Syron said the student government did represent the students for a long time and described when the student government barricaded themselves in the office with beer after the 1960s’ campus-wide prohibition. 

“There are a lot of things that students expect, that they want, and it doesn’t happen,” Syron said. “We’re saying setting the standard right back to where it should be.”

Tristan Syron, Presidential candidate 

Syron is the Chair of University Facility Fee Advisory Board, a senator for two years, college council president and currently works in Student Legal Services. 

Syron was the Director of Campus Engagement at the beginning of the year and approached different student groups to ask what frustrations they had with campus. 

“Nothin’,” Syron said of the response from ASCSU to the expressed frustrations. “There just wasn’t a lot of, ‘Let’s take it up.'”

Syron said he could not do much as the Director of Campus Engagement, but decided to take it upon himself to fix the issues. 

Kevin Sullivan, Vice Presidential candidate 

Sullivan is part of the ASCSU Undeclared Leadership Council and services in Senate leadership as Recruitment and Retention Officer. 

Sullivan joined ASCSU around election season in the spring of 2017.

“I felt like I didn’t understand what ASCSU was doing,” Sullivan said.

He said he decided then to do what he could to make ASCSU better. After about a year in Senate, he got into senate leadership within three weeks. 

“I passed a bill with my best friend right here.”

Their platform

The first part of their platform Syron wants to hit on is parking. Syron said students should be able to expect reasonable parking. 

“Parking’s a mess,” Syron said. “You can’t pass classes if you can’t afford to get there.”

Sullivan said they are not running on vague concepts and, ideally, by the end of their term, students would be able to see marked changes. Sullivan said it is easy for all of the campaigns to promote ideas like community. 

“We’re not running on buzzwords,” Sullivan said. “We want to offer tangible things that will change.”

Syron said they would like course surveys should be available online, to save paperwork, and that they should be available on Canvas at a later date for students to view, as a kind of modified, internal RateMyProfessor.

Sullivan said every campaign wants to promise the end of U+2 and said their campaign should help to advertise a bypass or waiver for the policy. 

Syron said they counted the problems brought to them by students and figured out how to fix them. 

“Our platforms are really student focused,” Syron said. 

Collegian News Editor Rachel Telljohn can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @racheltelljohn.