For those wondering but too afraid to ask, “pretend there’s an ‘e’ in front of the first ‘r’,” Noah Trstenjak told UTRGV Student Media, when asked how to pronounce his Czech/German last name, 27 March 2024 at the candidate forum. The hilarious, witty and master debater then directly delivered his message to UTRGV students, summarizing it thus:
“Good afternoon, students, or buenas tardes!
When I think about leadership, I think about courage. In terms of leadership experience, I’ve had the privilege of being a general member, a secretary, Vice President and a President of the student council of my high school. And I filled a vacancy in our SGA senate last semester, for a few months.
However, like I said, when I think about leadership, I think about courage. What makes a good leader is not necessarily leadership experience because a leader’s most important job is to be someone who sees the problems around them and then has that courage to try and bring that change.
I’ve been a student here at UTRGV for over three years, I’m a senior. And I’m a resident on campus, I’ve worked on campus. Campus, as it has been for all of us, has been my home for a long time and I see a lot of things around that need to be changed. We have concerns over parking. As a resident, I have concerns over the dining hall, the experience of the people who are residents, of international students who come in and live with us from outside of the Valley.
You know, we have concerns over campus life and over lacking community. Concerns over support to our wonderful organizations and clubs, like Greek life or athletics clubs, or some of our faith-based clubs.
Many, many wonderful clubs that contribute to a rich student experience, have not received support, which has led me to, along with the other wonderful people on my ticket, and the other many people running for senate in our coalition, to put together what we call the Vaqueros Movement, which is our movement towards our 2025 agenda, which is an agenda that we hope will bring transparency, so that you will be able to see what is going on in SGA; ability, which is the ability to actually bring the change we need to see, that we have not seen, for a very long time, and accessibility. So, we not only want transparency — to be able to see what we’re doing — but we want to be accessible to you, be able to get in contact with student government.
When I joined student government, I filled a vacancy in the senate because, I didn’t know this, but there are always empty seats in the senate that regular students just apply for because no one wants to do the job of senator, apparently. It’s not a popular thing. So, I filled the vacancy. And yet, I’m shocked by how few people knew what SGA was. Our voting participation for SGA elections is normally under six percent.
To me, that’s unacceptable. We need to break the bubble of SGA, and get it spread, SGA, out to all of us, as students, so we can know what’s going on; we can be in touch with and bring the change that we so desperately need, yet which is so sadly lacking.”
Related coverage:
Profiles in Revolutionary Excellence: Alexis Uscanga, SGA VP candidate
UTRGV releases candidate debate 8 hours after voting began
jonathansalinas@substack.com
* A previous version of this article incorrectly spelled Trstenjak.
Noah Trstenjak's message to UTRGV student body