ASUN election season is currently underway at the University of Nevada, Reno. On Monday, Feb. 22, the College of Engineering held its debate for senator seats. A total of three seats is allotted to the College of Engineering.

There are three candidates running for the seats: Edwin Casildo Rios, a first-year majoring in civil engineering; Joshua Luers, a first-year majoring in civil engineering; and Steffany Yang, a second-year majoring in chemical engineering. 

The debate consisted of a two-minute introduction for each candidate, a two-minute response to each question and a one-minute rebuttal. The candidates spoke on what their plans are for improving diversity in the college. They said their college could improve on diversity and campaign more to recruit women and people of color into the engineering field.

Casildo Rios said he would like to work on outreach to different schools in the Reno area to get people more engaged with engineering

“I think that in order to promote gender equality within the College of Engineering, we need to focus more on our local schools.” Casildo Rios said. “Elementary, middle school, high school. And through that, we can promote engineering. We can expose those students early on to the resources that we have available on campus. Also, we could promote women-led organizations on campus and a lot of them already are super stable.”

Yang also mentioned her time interning at Envirolution, an organization committed to supporting those interested in science. Yang said she spent lots of time working on supporting women in the engineering area. She also mentioned her interest in outreach to K-12 students.

Luers stated he would like to work on supporting and promoting women currently studying engineering at UNR. He said the women studying in the college should feel comfortable and confident at the university.

The candidates also spoke on their concerns about sustainability at the university. They stated they will like to create advocacy for more sustainable measures on campus. Luers spoke on the issue of food waste on campus and how he wants to address it if elected.

“One of the biggest things that I would say upsets me the most is that when I go to the Den, the new dining hall facility shows how much food waste they produce on the large board with,” Luers said. “And it said that last week they produced 1,100 pounds of food waste. In one week. Before it was about 1,500 pounds. And so something that I really want to work towards is just the den and also when Argenta opens back up to provide a lot of that food to homeless shelters.”

Yang and Casildo Rios also stated their ideas for improving sustainability on campus. Yang said she would like to plan for better recycling on campus. She also said she would like to help the university improve its movements for a more sustainable institution through the new buildings planned.

Casildo Rios said he would like to turn food waste into compost to improve the university’s efforts to become more community and environmentally friendly.

ASUN primary elections will be held on March 4 and 5. General elections will be held on March 11 and 12.

Sarah Strang can be found at sstrang@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @scsstrang.