Student leader wins student government election after attending Leadership Institute training
Alessandra Espinoza won her student government election after attending the Leadership Institute’s Youth Leadership School.
Espinoza intends to use her position to increase sexual assault survivor resources and prevention initiatives on campus and across Texas.
Alessandra Espinoza, who attended a Leadership Institute Campus Election Workshop, recently won her election as class senator for the Student Government Association (SGA) at the University of Houston (UH).
UH is the third largest public research institution in Texas, with nearly 40,000 undergraduate students.
The Leadership Institute, the parent organization of Campus Reform, hosts valuable training seminars for students interested in shaping their communities, which teach them how to develop a winning strategy.
[RELATED: Conservative student wins election after vandalism incident]
“I’ve never been involved with a [Student Government Association] campaign before,” Espinoza told the Leadership Institute, “so I was honestly worried about what to expect.”
After learning skills from LI, Espinoza said she “became more confident in [her] abilities to promote [herself] and [her] team in the right way.”
Prior to running for a senate seat, Espinoza served as an SGA emerging leader, which is an SGA freshman internship program “dedicated to helping the individual better understand the nature of both SGA and the University.” The program also helps freshman become more acquainted with the working relationship between students and the administration prior to serving in an official university leadership role.
Espinoza is passionate about sexual assault advocacy and hopes to use her position to expand UH’s survivor and education resources. She also intends to work with other universities to extend these initiatives across Texas.
UH reported a total of 59 sexual assault crimes from the recording period of 2019 to 2021. Of undergraduates nationally, over 26% of females and nearly 8% of males experience rape or sexual assault during their post-secondary education, according to the Rape, Assault, and Incest National Network (RAINN).
Follow Gabrielle M. Etzel on Twitter.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to Espinoza as having attended an LI YLS training, instead of the Campus Election Workshop she actually attended. The article has been corrected accordingly.
