When presidential candidate Carmina Aglubat looks at the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno — the university’s student body government — she sees one problem again and again.
“I think right now, what has happened to ASUN is that we’ve lost a lot of trust from the student body,” Aglubat said. “And I think losing trust from the student body means we lose the ability to serve them well.”
Aglubat serves as Speaker pro tempore of ASUN’s senate and holds one of four seats representing the College of Liberal Arts. Joel Martin, Aglubat’s opponent for the presidency, is also a College of Liberal Arts senator.
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Ethan McNamara, a College of Engineering senator who’s joined Aglubat’s campaign as a candidate for vice president, has noticed something that goes beyond students’ leery opinions of ASUN. Often, he said, they don’t share the kind of “Pack Pride” that the Aglubat-McNamara campaign, Home Means Nevada 2025, has made a central tenet.
“You kind of look around and have this realization that not everybody feels this way, and they have valid reasons why not,” McNamara said. “We want to create a culture around campus where more students can feel proud to be a University of Nevada student.”
Part of this, the two candidates argued, comes down to what they say are Reno’s lost “college town” days. Both grew up in Reno and decided to come to the university because taking pride in it was a hallmark of their childhoods.
“We did Wolf Pack Wednesdays at our middle school and high school, and it just kind of instilled that sense of Pack Pride,” McNamara said. “That’s the largest reason I love it here.”
The campaign has kept most of its specific policy goals to a 40-page master document that the candidates have been advising potential voters to ctrl + F search through for specific issues. And if it seems like Home Means Nevada 2025 is running on a feeling, Aglubat says that’s by design.
“I would say that our platform is pretty actionable,” Aglubat explained. “You actually lose people when you’re starting to do numbers and stats, when you’re trying to present to students policy that’s very focused.”
At the top of the list of pillars is “Tradition,” which kicks off with promises to revive two things students haven’t seen for some time: the Homecoming Parade and the original Artemisia yearbook, which transitioned into Insight magazine in 2008.
Aglubat argued that traditions like these are essential for making students feel like they belong at the university, and for getting off-campus Reno residents and organizations involved in campus life.
Pillar two, “Wellness,” also involves off-campus ties, with the platform describing lobbying efforts for affordable housing and other work with governments beyond the university, like the City of Reno, Washoe County or the State of Nevada.
“Probably the aspect that we feel very strongly about is very hand-in-hand with government affairs,” Aglubat said. “What we want to do is be very policy and advocacy-minded.”
Much of Aglubat and McNamara’s recent campaigning has taken place with clubs, a top priority for their “Connection” campaign pillar. Clubs and organizations have recently faced struggles getting ASUN funding, but the candidates’ website describes funding their operations as a principal focus.
“I think you find your home with people, usually through clubs and organizations,” Aglubat said. “And that’s why we put such a large emphasis on it.”
Largely, Aglubat and McNamara have tried to run a nonpartisan campaign, though Aglubat is open about her affiliation with the university’s Young Democrats chapter and explained she’d rather be frank about it than ask anyone to “check themselves at the door.”
“Student-first initiatives, as we see it, are bipartisan,” McNamara explained. “That doesn’t mean taking this side or that side, that means taking care of all students on this campus…I think everyone can tap into that regardless of their political affiliation.”
Diversity and inclusion, which appears in their campaign materials under their fourth pillar, “Community,” is still a part of that, they argue.
Home Means Nevada 2025 includes plans to form a Student Advisory Board of members outside of ASUN to monitor its activities, and to create an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) grant that would fund student initiatives to advance diversity on campus.
“It’s not ASUN thinking that we can solve every issue or that every solution comes from ASUN.” Aglubat explained. “…I think the IDEA grant is an extension of that to any student or any organization who’s seeking to break those glass ceilings.”
The candidates are expected to face off in their first and only debate this cycle today, March 8, at 1 p.m, in the Joe Crowley Student Union Theater.
Peregrine Hart can be reached via email at peregrineh@unr.edu or on Instagram @pintofperegrine.
