SGA PRESIDENT
Name: Raul L. Reyes
Age: 26
Occupation: City Mayor, City of El Cenizo
Director of Operations for the Rio Bravo Medical Clinic
TAMIU Student
Related experience:
- Current Mayor of El Cenizo
- TAMIU Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Chapter Secretary
- Board Member of Big Brothers Big Sisters/Laredo
- Advisory Board Member of Community in Schools, Inc.
- STDC Homeland Security Advisory Committee Member
- Citizens Advisory Committee Member of US
- Congressman Henry Cuellar
1. What will you do to encourage student involvement and enhance student life?
In order to encourage student involvement and enhance student life you need to engage and interact with the students to understand what their basic needs are. Primarily, we must ensure they know what SGA is and what they are doing for them. As president, I want to make certain that we make SGA transparent, accessible and responsive to the needs of the student body. With these factors in place and I will make the SGA presidency and the entire SGA more accessible and responsive by using technological initiative and resources to reach out to our student body. At the same time we provide interactive measures to eliminate communication barriers and engage in productive communication between student organizations to come up with innovated measures to enhance student life. The key factor here is engaging everyone in the process. It shouldn’t be a particular group making the difference if not the entire student body.
2. What is the biggest challenge facing the university? What would you do to meet that challenge?
There are many. One of which is of great importance to me is the lack of awareness from the student body as to what the Student Government Association is and what it can do for them. Students face many challenges and they need a leader who will listen to them and properly represent them. These basic concerns include the increasing educational costs, the availability of technological resources, and the quality of student life. TAMIU needs a leader who listens to them and who has leadership capabilities to impact and implement new policies that will be responsive to their needs. In correlation with this comes another challenge; the need to improve the quality of life and implement exciting innovative measures for our international students. This is an issue that will most certainly be on my priority list as well as the “Go Green” Initiative and student services for our international students.
3. What has been your most significant contribution to TAMIU thus far?
I am running for president to contribute to an institution that has given many local and international students top quality education that will serve us well. My contribution as Chapter Secretary for Phi Alpha Delta Pre – Law Fraternity has served me well and has allowed me to engage in student affairs. However, I pride myself most on my real life experience as Mayor of the City of El Cenizo. I have been blessed with the opportunity to be able to represent and work hard for the hundreds of hard working families in my community. My leadership experience coupled with true results will ensure that we get things done to better the lives our students.
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