Editor’s Note: The Collegian collaborated with CTV Channel 11 on this interview. Full interviews for all of the speaker of the senate candidates are available on the CTV 11 YouTube page.

Elections for leadership in the Associated Students of Colorado State University are upcoming for students, and CSU students have three candidates to choose from for the speaker of the senate position. 

Candidate Evan Welch, a political science major, is currently the chair of the University Affairs Committee and has been an ASCSU senator for two years. 

“The reason why I’m running is because I have a lot of experience in ASCSU,” Welch said. “I know what’s happening in ASCSU, and I know how to fix it.”

Welch said he is qualified for the position because he understands each role the speaker must take on, he is familiar with the ASCSU Constitution and bylaws and he has firsthand experience of how ASCSU works.

Welch’s campaign platform is centered around transparency, community and communication because those are the three most important parts of ASCSU, Welch said.

To work on improving the ASCSU community, Welch said he plans to work closely over the summer with each senator who gets elected, to make sure they understand how ASCSU works and they have a chance to talk about what they want to do as a senator. 

“Once we have a long conversation, I’ll be able to guide them through what they want to work on,” Welch said. “In past years as I was a senator, I was never really guided on things to work on, so it was really hard for me to write bills or write resolutions, … but if I become speaker, I will make sure to help every single senator and also people in leadership … to help them work on stuff.”

“I represent the students, I am your voice and I will be helping the senators use their voice to pass bills.” –Evan Welch, candidate for speaker of the senate

Welch said transparency is important alongside communication because “if you just do communication, you can communicate what you want people to know, but you can not let people know about other stuff.” By being transparent, Welch said he will be open about everything that happens in ASCSU and the senate, even if it is bad. 

Welch plans to be transparent by posting the minutes for every meeting in ASCSU — whether it is the senate meeting, a meeting between senate leadership or a committee meeting — on the ASCSU website for students to view. He will also document his working hours and send a weekly report to the rest of ASCSU so it is clear what he is doing, he said.

“You’ll see every single thing that I do — we”ll be very transparent, and we’ll communicate a lot because that’s what we need to rebuild the connection with ASCSU and the student body,” Welch said. 

As speaker, Welch said he plans to mediate conflict to create a more positive environment, especially between members of senate leadership. If he is unable to work through an issue between two senators or if there is an issue between himself and another member, he said he would ask the ASCSU judicial branch or the ASCSU advisors for help. 

For Welch, ASCSU is about the voice of CSU students.

“I represent the students, I am your voice and I will be helping the senators use their voice to pass bills,” Welch said.

The speaker of the senate leads ASCSU’s legislative branch, according to the official job description, and they supervise the senate committee chair, the recruitment and retention officer and parliamentarian. The speaker’s role is to also act as a liaison between the senate and the community, including CSU administration and faculty.

Welch received a vote of confidence from the ASCSU senate March 23. The senate votes on all speaker of the senate candidates to express their approval of an individual’s candidacy and their ability to do the job.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include the results of the vote of confidence.

Editor’s Note: Read about the other two speaker of the senate candidates Nicholas DeSalvo and Rithik Correa.

Reach Serena Bettis at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @serenaroseb.