As Lizbeth Montavlo looks to the end of her presidential term with the Northern Iowan Student Government, she recants how her time with the organization and serving the student body has impacted her. “I think in the beginning, I did struggle a lot. It took me a while to kind of get over imposter syndrome,” Montalvo said. The NISG presidential race is underway, and Montalvo recollects her administration’s successes and struggles as she looks to not just finish out her term, but to graduate.
“I remember thinking, ‘Why did I even take up this role? Who said I was capable of doing this?’” Montalvo thought back to her moments of imposter syndrome when she was first elected to the role of student body president after serving as student body vice president under Micaiah Krutsinger. “I just had to get out of my head and realize I earned it. I campaigned. People voted for me.” As Montalvo worked through her feelings of imposter syndrome, she was able to focus more on her role as student body president and delegate to those who serve in her administration. One of the biggest tasks that Montalvo’s administration took on was the allocation of funds after DEI offices at UNI were dissolved due to Iowa legislation. Montalvo says that after the DEI offices were dissolved, NISG received the funds that would originally go to those offices. NISG chose to allocate that funding to organizations that were most affected by the dissolution of DEI offices across campus in an effort to better support those student groups. “I know that was a really big relief off of their shoulders,” Montalvo said. NISG also collaborated with the Multicultural Council in a larger effort to keep the Center for Multicultural Education alive through student-led events.
While Montalvo’s administration helped to lead these efforts, work will still be passed down to the next administration, and whether or not they choose to carry on the work is up to them. “We work closely with the statehouse and the Board of Regents to advocate for students’ voices and we’ve been trying to advocate for mental health allocation for the past three years now, and it’s been denied,” said Montalvo. “Students might not always see the connections with those entities, and it’s really up to the next administration and what they specifically want to advocate for.”
Montalvo was aware when she began campaigning that advocacy and allocation of funding would become day-to-day tasks during the last two years. What she wasn’t prepared for was the sheer investment of her time and personal life into her presidency. “Michaiah told me when I was running for his vice presidency, ‘you’re going to feel like you’re always wearing a name tag,’ … and it has clicked, that people do pay attention to who I am,” Montalvo said. Learning that students knew who she was also opened Montalvo up to how students correlate her to state action, whether that action is positive or negative. “A lot of stuff is decided by legislators or the Board of Regents, and we just help carry out what they instruct us to do,” said Montalvo. “But truly, at the end of the day, we want to advocate for student voices at every level possible.”
Montalvo will finish her term as student body president this semester, and pass down the gavel to the next administration. Campaigns have begun for the next student body president and vice president. Candidates for student body president, Alli Webster and Evan Winter, alongside candidates for student body vice president, Gabriel Salazar and Cooper Messina, will participate in a debate held by NISG this Wednesday, Feb. 26 in the Maucker Union Ballrooms at 6 p.m.
