The art behind running for president at the University of Nevada, Reno From houseless to running for ASUN President

With Sandoval being such a large member of the community both in Reno but also in Nevada, it is extremely easy to forget that he’s a typical person.

He talked to me about his love for music and movies, especially the classics that he grew up with because of the connection and foundation he has with them.

He explains that he was a “child of the 70s and 80s” and when I mentioned the reliable Sony Walkman from the past, his face lit up.

“Yeah! I still have some of my cassettes. No more eight tracks.”

“I like a little bit of everything. I try to watch the award winners and the nominees for the Academy Awards. Lauralyn And I will meticulously watch each one of those.”

Lauralyn McCarthy is Sandoval’s wife, whom

Nonetheless, he acknowledged Northern Nevada as a whole being a great place to live.

“It’s where raised my family, my three kids and I want our students and the people in this community to have the same opportunities they did.”

Sandoval also discussed the unique and recent acquisition of the formerly known Sierra Nevada university, now called the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. He mentions that

“We’re going to have our first cohort of students. You’ve heard about studying abroad, we’re gonna have a semester at Tahoe,” said Sandoval excitedly. “Students from it will be multidisciplinary and that tuition will be no different at Lake Tahoe as it would be here. It’ll be a curriculum based on sustainability. We’ll

“Natural disasters such as the horrible tragedy that occurred in Clark County, with shootings, floods etc,” he said. “As President, it’s more like being in charge of a large city, we have 20,000 students, faculty and staff.”

However he also explained why he took the position as president in the first place. The number reason being: he loves it here.

“I do believe in my heart that everything that I’ve had the opportunity to accomplish, and be involved in started on this campus,” said Sandoval. “I made my best friends in the world here. I had mentors here from faculty and staff. When was a student here, I interned for Paul Laxalt, who was a [United States] senator.”

He explained that he is “really passionate about this university, and what it has done and what it can do.”

He mentioned that after serving his time as the governor he was the president of global gaming for MGM which meant he was traveling frequently because of MGM’s plans to potentially develop an integrated resort in Japan. It was in Japan that he was made aware of the opportunity and applied.

“I’m a non-traditional candidate. I don’t come from an academic background, I didn’t come through a faculty appointment, and then a chair of a department and perhaps a dean, and then a provost: which is the traditional pathway. I bring a different skill set: a real familiarity with higher education and how it’s budgeted,” said Snaodval on his skill set.

“When I applied, that’s when we were in the teeth of the beginning of the pandemic. We also had a budget crisis. I felt like I really had demonstrated the skill set to lead this university at a time of crisis. My understanding is that over 100 people applied, it was a very in depth search process and I was very blessed and fortunate to be selected.”

Following Sandoval’s introduction as president of the university, the COVID-19 pandemic was unexpectedly life altering for everybody. I asked him how the pandemic changed what his vision of his first year as president would be like and how it impacted choices.

“It was hard because,” he said. “I had to watch our students, faculty and staff and all the struggles that they had to go through trying to balance the best educational experience that they could provide, but obviously, with health and safety.”

He talked about the difficulties of having to teach staff and faculty how to transition to online learning and work environments, as well as the issues with implementing social distancing in smaller lecture rooms. Not all was bad, he did discover some things in the process.

“One of the things that we discovered during the pandemic was there was no digital equity. Not every student had a device, not every student had access to WiFi,” said Sandoval. “So, we partnered with Apple. Now, every incoming or transfer student gets an Apple iPad, pencil, a keyboard and the training.”

Continued online at thenevadasagebrush.com

Gabe Kanae can be reached via email at gkanae@sagebrush.unr.edu or via Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.

By Lizette Ramirez

The ninety-first session of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada is approaching and Empower Nevada is a campaign run by two individuals hoping to empower students to be their own leaders.

Boris Carpio Guerra, presidential candidate, and Hannah Alquiza, vice presidential candidate, are running as a duo for the 2023 to 2024 academic year.

Both Carpio Guerra and Alquiza are currently involved in the association: Carpio Guerra as the director of campus wellness and Alquiza as the assistant director for marketing and interns. Alquiza started with ASUN as an intern in 2020.

The Empower campaign deeply resonates with Alquiza because she says Carpio Guerra is the one who empowered her when she first arrived at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“I was a little shy Asian girl who didn’t feel empowered enough to speak out and speak up,” Alquiza explained, “I want to be the voice that Boris was to me in terms of empowering students to make them feel like they have a voice to do anything that they want to do.”

Carpio Guerra on the other hand has felt empowered since his freshman year. He said he has been visiting the university for 12 years now as part of the Dean’s Future Scholars Program; he has visited the campus every year since sixth grade.

“I felt like this was actually home so that when I came here, I didn’t feel discouraged,” Carpio Guerra stated. “I already felt empowered by all the resources that were available, and all the programs that helped me find my voice, my leadership skills, and all that good stuff.”

Carpio Guerra hopes the campaign will lead students to discover the university’s opportunities and resources to use them at their fullest potential.

Additionally, the impact of COVID-19 made Carpio Guerra and Alquiza feel like they lost their way in terms of leadership. Alquiza explained she lost the confidence to go and speak out because COVID-19 halted everything for a whole year; Carpio Guerra also felt discouraged.

“When I applied for ASUN, so last minute like a day before the deadline because I felt discouraged just because of the situation we were in, which is no one’s fault,” Carpio Guerra said. “But I’m glad I did it. found my own little community out of all the many communities that I found, and I think it kind of helped relieve all the pain that COVID brought.”

Another aspect of Empower Nevada is to uplift the voices of underrepresented students. “We [underrepresented identities] can make the change and we don’t have to abide by others’ norms or like other stuff that has already been done. We can make a difference,” Carpio Guerra said.

Since Carpio Guerra’s freshman year at UNR, he knew he wanted to eventually run for president at ASUN. During the summer 2022 is when he asked if Alquiza wanted to run with him Alquiza runs her own department of interns and he saw how much she’s empowered them with having them find their voice.

“I see that as VP she’s able to do that in a much higher level and a much more level of impact on larger audiences,” Carpio Guerra explained.

By Lizette Ramirez

The ninety-first session of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada is seeing three presidential candidates — one of them being Luis Galvez, a second year junior standing.

Galvez is currently a senator for the College of Education. When Galvez entered ASUN, he did not initially plan on running for president. It wasn’t until an ASUN colleague asked him to be his vice president. Being asked that made Galvez realize his work in ASUN was being noticed.

“I was actually really excited because I guess my activity in ASUN was being recognized and that, you know, the work that I was doing showed that I was worthy to be vice president and that somebody wanted me on their team,” Galvez explained.

Galvez explained there was no real reason to say no to the colleague — other than the fact that Galvez was also considering running for president.

The ninety-first session is the only session Galvez can realistically be president. During the ninety-second session Galvez will not be on campus often, due to his education program. Galvez decided he wanted to finalize the plan of running for president back in Dec. 2022.

Galvez had four different people in mind to run as vice president with him, but in the end none of those options worked out.

“It turned out by the end of it, that all of those individuals didn’t have goals that were similar enough to my goals or work styles…” Galvez revealed. “So you know, decided to run alone.”

Galvez recognized he had a chance to work with Hannah Alquiza, vice president elect.

“I know her a bit personally, and she’s lovely. And I haven’t asked her yet, but I think that we both make a great team,” Galvez expressed.

Galvez wants his presidency to be centered around art. Galvez calls himself an artist. He is a theater actor, he writes his own music, and he dances. Galvez was in the recent campus musical, Cabaret. According to Galvez, a lot of students on campus call themselves artists.

“I think that there is so much talent at the university…” Galvez stated. “I’m so passionate about being able to display and advocate and sponsor and find opportunities for showcasing the arts, both within campus and also displaying the Wolfpack talent all the way across the Reno-Sparks area.”

ASUN elections begin on March 15 at 8 a.m. and lasts until March 16 at 5 p.m. Students can vote on Pack Life

By Lizette Ramirez

Cameron Rose, presidential candidate for the ninetyfirst session of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada has been gaining traction with the campaign Homeless2President.

Rose is a student on campus who was originally houseless. Rose hasn’t had much history with being in ASUN, but he is passionate about his beliefs and the changes needing to be done on campus.

“I feel that the university has some issues,” Rose stated. “I feel a lot of the students are in the same position I am where we feel helpless and like there’s nothing that can be done. I think that’s bad.”

Students have approached Rose and shared they feel excluded from the university. Students and Rose himself have felt excluded because of having an issue with a student, or professor, and the university doesn’t solve the problem.

“If there’s issues. We need to discuss those issues and not ignore the issues as we do, and hope that they’re just going to go away, because that just makes the problems worse,” Rose expressed.

This isn’t just a UNR problem to Rose, he feels it’s a problem across the nation. Rose hopes to encourage leadership if elected and values students speaking up and out about issues, something he hopes to mirror for students in his run for president.

“Inclusivity means giving more opportunities for the students to participate,” Rose said.

Rose gave an example of the initiative petition process. If a student feels a representative or themselves can present an issue then students can vote on the issue.

Though this allows students to present issues, Rose doesn’t feel this process is inclusive.

“It requires 50 percent of the last general elections, amount of student signatures which is audacious, like That’s ridiculous. That’s not inclusive in any way, shape, or form,” Rose explained.

Despite Rose not having much history in ASUN, he has been attending more meetings since announcing his campaign. Rose wanted to get adjusted to campus life before diving into the organization. Rose believes in order to be a great leader to the campus, he has to put himself first and get the hang of how UNR functions.

Even if Rose doesn’t win this election, he plans on working with the association to continue to advocate for the issues on campus and to continue to be a representative for students.

ASUN elections start on March 15 at 8 a.m. to March 16 at 5 p.m. on Pack Life. Students can vote for presidential, vice presidential and senatorial candidates, as well as ballot questions.

News Lit AF: UNR students rallying for a news literate Nevada

By Emerson Drewes

On Thursday, March 2 was declared News Literacy Day in Washoe County all due to the efforts of six Reynolds School of Journalism students. These students are a part of the Bateman Case Study Competition where this year they have been tasked with making students more “News Lit AF.”

The students, also members of the Public Relations Student Society of America, the student chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, have been tasked with creating a public relations campaign for The News Literacy Project as a part of the Bateman Case Study Competition.

According to the PRSA website the competition is “PRSSA’s premier national case study competition for public relations students.” Every year the students partner with a client and implement a full public relations campaign for them within a month. This year it spanned from Feb. 6 to March 6.

“It’s by invitation. When I heard about it and when Alison approached me, I was like, ‘Yeah, this sounds like a really fun opportunity,’ especially with what our client: The News Literacy Project,” said Mckenzie Papa, account manager for the Bateman team.

The News Literacy Project is a non-partisan, non-profit, educational organization dedicated to stopping the spread of misinformation.

“Their goal is essentially to create a better informed, more engaged and more empowered individuals and ultimately a stronger democracy,” said Papa. “They have tools like RumorGuard that help people find credible news and fact check credible news or fact check news in general.”

Operating as a public relations team, they must bolster the efforts and message of the client through implementation efforts and get students to be News Lit AF, their slogan; the AF stands for “actual factual” a nod to their Instagram handle.

Currently, the team has created an Instagram called @Actu- alFactualNV where they spread awareness about news literacy and the organizations assets and have had events throughout campus. Their slogan has been plastered throughout campus — News Lit AF — something RSJ students can see as they walk down the stairwell of the journalism building.

“So we’ve been putting on events for the most part every week our campaign launched on Feb. 6,” said Skyler Lacey, publicity manager for the team.

The events that have happened include their Canada Coffee event on Feb. 8 where they passed out coffee in exchange for pledges, a trivia night on Feb. 23 at Slieve Brewery where they tested “people’s ability to identify misinformation,” according to Lacey and a round table talk on March 2 where they partnered with Al Stavitsky, dean of the RSJ, and chatted about misinformation in Nevada.

Also in attendance at the event was Mariluz Garcia, Washoe County commissioner for District 3, where she read the proclamation to make March 2 News Literacy Day.

“I think that this year specifically, we have a really great team of people who all individually bring really good skills to the table,” said Lacey. “I think that I’m really grateful to have this opportunity because it is very rewarding.”

The implementation ends for the team on Monday. After they make a 50-page long document that compiles all of their campaign efforts submitted at the end of March and winners are announced in April. The team competes against over 70 teams across the country.

Editors Note: Lizette Ramirez, Nevada Sagebrush news editor, and Jessica Cabrera, Nevada Sagebrush copy editor, are members of the Bateman team. They were not involved in the writing or editing of the story. This story is written objectively

Emerson Drewes can be reached via email at edrewes@ sagebrush.unr.edu or via Twitter @EmersonDrewes.