Nicholas Nachtman: Student Government Reflection

honorsatiowa

February 15

Nachtman pictured discussing our Higher Ed Institutions with Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Nicholas Nachtman shares about his time representing University of Iowa students through his position as a director of governmental relations. During his time spent coordinating with many government officials, he helped work towards important goals specifically relating to mental health and rental policy legislation. In this narrative Nachtman reflects on his accomplishments and the personal impact of this experience.

Student Government was the first organization I joined in college. It was the fall of 2020, students had just returned to campus following the pandemic closure, and no one had any idea what was going on. I'm not quite sure how I learned about the opportunity to be honest. But I submitted a resume and application and lo and behold I was selected to join as an at-large senator. Now I have a lot of intense feelings about the organization, both good and bad, but I do know that it was perhaps the most important thing that I did during my time at the University of Iowa.

Fast-forward to the end of my sophomore year, by which time I had served as both the LGBTQ+ constituency senator and the chair of the Justice & Equity Committee. This was an inflection point for me, I knew I wanted to continue in student government, but I didn't know where. That is when a friend of mine said, "You should apply for governmental relations, you'd be great!" And I'm very happy they did.

After an application and interview process, the incoming administration chose me to serve as the director of governmental relations. I was appointed to work 10 hours a week from May 2022 to May 2023, and those 10 or more hours became a crucial part of my life. My job was to represent the interests of the students of the University of Iowa to all levels of government, from the city council to the US Congress. This meant coordinating with my professional counterparts at the university, developing a policy platform to advocate for, keeping in touch with officials at all levels of government, and hosting Hawkeye Caucus Day, where we brought over 200 students and faculty to Des Moines to advocate in the capitol firsthand.

There are three main accomplishments I like to highlight about my time. The first involved my work with the Board of Regents of Iowa's State Universities. The student body president and I decided that mental health would be one of our main advocacy themes for the year. Through multiple meetings we prepared and presented a policy memo discussing wait times for mental health treatment at the university, feedback we had received from students, effects of COVID on mental health, and the sobering statistics the university had collected. Eventually, we secured $1 million in additional funds for mental health programming.

Second, because of the notoriously bad landlords in Iowa City and the general mistreatment of student tenants nationally, student government had been advocating for better rental policies for years. After much hard work by my predecessors, we developed a law that would implement a tenants move-in checklist to protect renters. We met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers as well as landlord advocates and put together a piece of legislation that everyone was happy with. During the legislative session, we traveled to Des Moines every other week in addition to running an outreach campaign to advocate for the legislation. In March, the bill passed with an astounding 96 yea votes.

Finally, I am proud of my work organizing Hawkeye Caucus Day as well as a trip to Washington, DC. These initiatives were more managerial than what I had done previously, and it was enlightening to combine those essential skills with the ones I had already used. Preparation for Hawkeye Caucus Day required everything from ordering hundreds of lunches, to managing a bus schedule, to organizing legislative roundtables. Planning the trip to DC required booking plane tickets, securing background checks to enter federal buildings, and setting up meetings with Iowa's senators and representatives, of whom we met all but one!

The first challenge I faced was that, although I studied government and politics, had been a member of student government, and had participated in campaigns and policymaking, I had never actually done anything like this before. I had the job description, and a fantastic transition document, but I was still stepping into waters unknown. But I think this was very important for my personal growth. I had to learn how to do my job in a way that made sense for me. I couldn't talk to legislators like my predecessor because we were different people. I had to do it my way. Likewise, I had to take old materials and make sure they were up to date and were reflective of our organization in that moment. I was assigned a lot of responsibility, and it was nerve-racking but rewarding to fill that mantle.

The job also gave me an understanding of my coursework that I didn't have before. Anyone can study something in a classroom for a million years, but until you really see how the sausage is made it kind of means nothing. For the first time in my life, I wasn't just reading about how a bill has been passed or how politicians are lobbied, I was doing it myself. Not only did this make me even more excited to follow my career path, it also proved that I could do this as a career.

One of the biggest things I learned was two-fold: the least you can do is ask and it's not a bad thing if someone says no. I learned how much I could get done if, for example, I asked a lawmaker to take a look at a bill. You should always ask. But this came with learning that it's okay if someone says no. It's not an attack, it's just an answer. It doesn't ruin anything. Since then, I have achieved so many things just because I asked, and I wasn't afraid to hear no.

I value my time as director of government relations highly. It shaped the professional version of me and I am excited to use those skills to succeed in my future.

Author Bio: Nick Nachtman is a fourth-year student studying political science, ethics & public policy, and sociology. In addition to his time as director of governmental relations for student government, Nick has worked as an honors peer mentor and programming director for Hawk the Vote. He is also a member of the Presidential Scholars Program. In his free time, he enjoys watching movies, hanging out with his friends, and collecting records.