The representation of all students on campus is the main priority of Dominick Quintana and his running mate, Aly Ammar, as they vie for the offices of president and vice president of the Associated Students of Colorado State University.

Dominick Quintana, Presidential Candidate

Quintana, an undeclared junior pursuing a business interest, sat on the 47th Senate as a senator for the Intra-University in the 2017-18 academic year. He was not a part of ASCSU this semester because he wanted to get more involved with CSU’s community. As of now, he serves as a resident assistant for University Housing, site leader for CSU’s Alternative Spring Break program, and the president of Lambda Sigma Upsilon Latino Fraternity, which he brought to campus last semester.

Quintana said he decided to run due to his passion for fighting for student voices. He said he believes strongly in advocating for students all across campus.

“I believe that it starts with two students that want to get involved and want to make that change,” Quintana said. “Aly (Ammar) and I would love to see how we can implement new policies to get the student government more involved with this representation problem on our campus.”

Quintana said he wants students to know the positive impact that student government can have on campus.

Aly Ammar, Vice Presidential Candidate

Ammar, a senior engineering major, is currently a senator in the ASCSU Senate as a representative of the Office of International Programs. He works with the deputy director for international affairs to create better representation for his constituents.

Ammar focuses on the representation of minority students present at CSU, which was inspired by his time working with international offices.

“I have noticed that, especially within international programs, there are a lot of people that are not at all represented in ASCSU right now,” Ammar said. “That is the big issue for our administration, we want to make sure that every single person of every race, ethnicity and religion gets represented in student government and I feel like I am running for that reason and I want to make sure that happens.”

Ammar said that another focus of their campaign is that they hope to create a conversation around the issues that they are running around regardless of whether they win or not.

“Hopefully we can get people to realize that there is this issue around campus and maybe, just maybe, if other candidates win they will realize that what we were running for is also an important issue,” Ammar said.

Their platform

Quintana-Ammar’s campaign profile focuses on three main issues: The interaction between the student body and ASCSU, a reformation of school policies regarding stress levels around finals week, and continuing the efforts of the current administration to modify the U+2 initiative.

“Especially with the new president coming in, we feel like it is important to get more people involved in how the campus and its policies are reformed,” Ammar said. “It is also a way for students to hold us as the leadership accountable for our promises and ensure that the campus leadership follows through on serving the students.”

The Quintana-Ammar campaign said they prioritize the representation of minorities in student government. A highlight of their campaign is that if a student is attending CSU, they deserve to be heard.

“I feel that under the whole underrepresentation of students on campus, one of the big things that I like to highlight is that there are a lot of students that are paying their student fees and they are not getting represented in student government and in environments where decisions are getting made,” Ammar said. “When this happens, I like to call it the campus version of taxation without representation. They are paying their student fee, they need to be a part of the conversation of how it gets spent.”

Corbin Reiter can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter