ASUSU fights higher education budget cuts
Student governments around the state plan to collect signatures to petition further gouging of higher education budgets.
Three groups, the Utah Student Association, the Higher Education Compact and Prosperity 2020, recently teamed up to prevent further budget cuts with a signature drive, said Erik Mikkelsen, ASUSU Executive Council president. He presented the plan to the council in its meeting Tuesday.
Mikkelsen said the signature drive, called Education First, aims to collect signatures at campuses across the state.
“This could potentially be huge, because our funding gets cut every year,” Mikkelsen said. “If we can some way affect that and help the Legislature see that we’re sick and tired of taking the cuts on the legislative level, and if they recognize that we’re actually a viable group of people who care about what we’re doing, we’ll be able to hopefully make a difference on Capitol Hill this year.”
Mikkelsen said the goal is to get a total of 20,000 signatures.
ASUSU is focusing on the student side of the signature drive, Mikkelsen said, while the two other organizations will focus on getting signatures from business and government leaders all over the state to lobby on Capitol Hill, on behalf of higher education.
Every college or university in the state will receive about $300 as an incentive to get signatures, said Kirsten Frank, executive vice president of ASUSU.
“We’ll use that $300 as an incentive for the clubs and organizations on campus,” Frank said. “Whoever comes back having turned in the most signatures will get that money for their organization or council or club.”
Frank said the Governor’s Gala is another way to encourage support. She said the gala is a fancy and expensive party put on every year, and a few seats will be given to students from the school that gets the most signatures overall and reaches the highest percentage of its goal.
Frank urged the council to help its committees gather signatures so Education First reaches its 20,000-signature goal.
Mikkelsen said the council will utilize campus clubs, organizations, and high-volume classes and events to pass around signature sheets.
According to Frank, signatures are due Nov. 4, which will then be given to the Utah Student Association.
ASUSU Executive Council also addressed its own legislative business Tuesday. During the council meeting Hannah Blackburn, director of ASUSU Public Relations, proposed an amendment to the Student Constitution that would change the ASUSU election schedule.
“This is just a minor amendment,” Blackburn said, “to know when to set elections so other colleges know not to set up events during (that) week.”
The amendment would schedule elections for February instead of March.
Frank said she opposed the amendment because the election campaigns are held outside and it is cold in February, however the council passed the amendment.
Blackburn will present further details of the amendment to the council next week.
The second reading of Graduate Student Senate Bill 2012-01 also passed at Tuesday’s meeting. The bill was read by Cami Jones, vice president of Graduate Studies.
Last week Jones said the bill formally splits the former Graduate Senator position for the College of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences into two separate senator positions. She said the split is a formality, which helps make the separation of the College of HASS in July 2010 official.
– chris.w.lee@aggiemail.usu.edu