The Student Government Association (SGA) announced 9.1% of eligible voters participated in the General Elections, and those elected will represent the UTRGV student body for the 2025-26 academic year.
In an email sent to Vaquero Radio, Associate Dean for Student Involvement Delma Olivarez highlighted a few things SGA saw for the first time in UTRGV history. The association received 56 applications, along with having six contested races and three executive tickets on the ballot for the first time.
Team Victoriam won the executive ticket race, which includes president-elect Juan Espinoza and vice president-elects Ian Alfaro and Clarissa Rendon.
Alfaro said his team plans to maintain strong relationships with faculty and staff that the last administration established but also create new ones.
“We want SGA to have a strong relationship with all administration, faculties and strong relationship with the students and the student clubs,” he said. “That’s what SGA is supposed to be, so highlighting that for sure. Keeping the connectivity, showing student clubs how they can get more from SGA.”
Espinoza said SGA promotes funds well, but personal engagement with student organizations makes a bigger impact. Team Victoriam already started visiting groups such as the Chess Club, Psychology Club and Boxing Club to build connections and visibility.
“Just so they can get a sense of who we are as people, and they can feel more at ease of being able to reach out to us,” he said. “Because I think that was something that a lot of organizations informed us about, was they just wanted that more direct communication. And that’s something we’re hoping to provide especially.”
According to Espinoza, because the SGA social media platform is large, one idea is to create vlogs where his team visits clubs and showcases their impact, as well as highlight influential students on campus.
“And, I think we want to highlight students like that,” he said. “Less highlighting just SGA and the executive team, and more putting that light on the students that I think really make this campus what it is.”
Alfaro said he wants more SGA members actively visiting clubs and taking the initiative to meet students one-on-one. He said the team is not limiting itself and is planning to branch out in new ways to connect.
“Whether it’s, you know, going to clubs, telling our senators, ‘Hey, look, you’re Senator of College of Liberal Arts, focus on the clubs in your college, go meet with them, see how they’re doing, what are their concerns?’” Alfaro said. “And really just keeping the students in loop with social media.”
With a larger SGA team, Espinoza wants senators more involved in meetings, especially with their own colleges, to build stronger connections and gain firsthand experience.
“So, the idea is to integrate all of the senators into what we do, and hopefully give them those individual task, of, like, Ian said, ‘You’re going to oversee the students of these colleges, really and try to get involved in what’s done in that college,’” he said. “And hopefully that’s something we can achieve, so we can make SGA feel like a whole family.”
Alfaro said since the team is composed of busy students, staying disciplined and supporting each other is essential.
“There might be one day or one week where, you know, I might not be feeling it,” he said. “And that’s Juan comes in, lift me up, right, he needs to be strong for me. … You know, just lifting ourselves up, keeping that trust and staying disciplined.”
Espinoza wants to create a sense of family within SGA, moving past campaign tensions and focusing on unity. The goal now is collaboration and compromise, even when there are disagreements among themselves.
“And, we keep pushing forward for the betterment of the students of the university,” he said. “And I think that’s really important too when it comes to student government because we want to make sure that it’s seen as a collective. And even though we have our differences, we can still continue moving forward.”
SGA held its inauguration ceremony last Wednesday at the Edinburg Ballroom. Espinoza said as he was giving his speech, he felt like tearing up as he looked at everyone who helped his team win.
“And, I remember when I was looking around the room, everyone kept, like, laughing or smiling, they’re, like, ‘We knew’ because I’ll just smile at them, like, ‘You helped me do this, I appreciate it,’” he said. “But not just, like, the people that helped us, but even the ones that weren’t alongside us that ran. Just seeing them have gone through this journey to finally being elected. I think it was just a very wholesome and heartfelt moment.”
Alfaro said Team Victoriam is there to listen and is always open to hearing ideas and concerns as it begins its leadership journey.
“We’re nice people,” he said. “We would love to, like, speak to anyone … we love staying connected. We love staying in the loop. We love hearing people’s opinions and what it is because there’s always something to learn and we love to learn.”
The new elected SGA leaders will take office at noon May 5.
This is Victoria Gonzalez for Vaquero Radio.
Note: Clarisa Rendon was not available for an interview at the time of this broadcast.
