Student Association presidential candidate Iggy Nava has the tendency to relate conversations back to two very different topics: the United Nations and “Star Wars.”

“My religion is Jedi,” he said gleefully, describing his eccentric decision to submit this as his religious preference to Syracuse University last year. “If Hendricks has a database anywhere, then that’s what I’m in.”

For Nava, an assembly representative and sophomore international relations major, these two seemingly lighthearted interests in some ways represent the person he aspires to be. And they’ve also helped him bring about a serious set of ideas for SA and SU as a whole if elected president.

His platform, “The University We Want,” aims to address separation between different groups of students on campus, environmental sustainability and strengthening the idea of Scholarship in Action.

Born in Bolivia, he moved frequently due to his father’s employment as a geologist for Chevron to places such as San Francisco, Calif., Buenos Aires, Argentina and Lagos, Nigeria. At 14, his family then moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he graduated high school with an International Baccalaureate diploma — and served as head delegate of Model U.N.

Nava is fluent in Spanish, English and Portuguese and has taken five years of French, in addition to now studying Quechua, an indigenous Latin American language spoken by the Incan Empire and throughout the Andes.

While in Brazil, he turned down a contract with a small professional soccer team in order to go to college. Though he ultimately did not accept a position as a student manager on the SU men’s soccer team, Nava chose to enroll because of the international relations program.

This summer, he participated in the Rio + 20 U.N. Conference on Sustainability and Development as a volunteer, member of the nongovernmental organization Peace Child International and as a youth delegate representing Bolivia.

During the conference, Nava met the entire U.N. System Chief Executives’ Board for Coordination — including the secretary-general — high-ranking members of the World Bank and World Wildlife Fund, and even played soccer with the current president of Bolivia.

“It’s really unreal to think about now,” Nava said.

Besides his campaign slogan’s take on Rio +20’s  “The Future We Want,” other elements of his campaign can be traced back to this experience, he said.

His push for environmental sustainability, dubbed “Let’s Make Green Sexy,” was part of a project he worked on during the conference with other participants. Nava smiles when he plays back a video of Christiana Figueres, executive director of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, quoting this phrase during a speech at the conference.

Nava has the least SA experience when compared to the other candidates. He did not join until last spring. He was also president of DellPlain Hall in the Residence Hall Association.

His campaign manager, Boris Gresely, an assembly representative and sophomore international relations and political science major, got to know him well through RHA. Gresely serves as president and appointed Nava to the ad hoc position of chief of staff because he liked his ideas and vision, he said.

SA elections have generally been popularity contests, he said, and as a result Nava’s campaign focuses heavily on his platform rather than his presence. Instead of using large cardboard-cutout heads, he said, they go up to students and ask them to write on a whiteboard about what university they want.

In a tan notebook, Nava takes notes throughout the day about student concerns at SU and other projects he could pursue, Gresely said.

The notebook is a quirk that Daniel Campo, and sophomore biomedical engineering and pre-med major at Columbia University and one of Nava’s close friends, remembers vividly.

Waiting for a table at a restaurant during Thanksgiving, the two decided to read the comments aloud and had a lot of fun, especially with some of the comments he described as “ridiculous.”

“Iggy is not something that can be explained,” Campo said. “He’s a character,” going on to explain a time when Nava decided to explore Harlem, N.Y., by himself during a visit after he fell asleep.

Other candidates in the race have some reservations about Nava becoming president, but spoke highly of him overall.

PJ Alampi, chair of the Student Life Committee, described him as someone who was always looking to get feedback on ideas, noting Nava always spoke his mind, often bringing up valid points.

Alampi said he’s seen a drop off in involvement with projects the committee is trying to push, likely due to campaigning, but conceded the same could apply to him in some cases.

For Kyle Coleman, Nava always came off as a person who was professional and genuinely cared about issues at SU, and did not want to pursue them for personal gain.

Both saw the levels of segregation on SU’s campus, he said, which made them become close. Neither of them were planning to run for president since their freshman year — something different from Alampi and Vice President Allie Curtis, who said she was unable to comment due to her position in SA, he said.

But Coleman and Alampi expressed some hesitations about what they perceive to be a heavy focus on international students and him being a sophomore.

“I really respect him — the reason why he’s running,” Coleman said. “Even if I think it’s a year early, I still respect him.”

Though not officially backing any candidate in the race in an effort to stay neutral, President Dylan Lustig acknowledged the challenges of running in the race as an underclassman.

“You know, anyone who runs as a sophomore — I commend them,” Lustig said. “Because I know the feeling of having people say, ‘you’re not qualified,’ or, ‘you’re not ready.’”

Nava founded the International Student Organisation and works as a mentor at the Slutzker Center for International Services. He said his goal is to address segregation between groups as a whole.

“If anything, I’m trying to make it a more inclusive campus,” he said. “I wouldn’t prioritize international students at all.”

If he is not elected, Nava said he plans to stay involved with SA in some capacity. He said he did not submit a bid for re-election as an assembly representative, but would like to continue work with the organization’s various committees.

Before running for assembly representative, he said he interviewed for the position of vice president, though was not appointed. In April, he was not elected to a student liaison position on the Board of Trustees, either.

But neither experience is affecting his confidence for this election.

“My mindset going into this is, ‘I’m going to win,’” he said. “Not to be cocky or anything, but that’s just the mindset to go with if you want to win.”

Published on November 8, 2012 at 2:28 am

Contact Dylan: dmsegelb@syr.edu | @dylan_segelbaum