Government Relations Council delivers ice cream, receives Campus Cup
The Utah State University Government Relations Council visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday, delivering Aggie Ice Cream to members of Congress and received the Campus Cup, an award for registering the most students to vote.
“What we do is we just try to show our appreciation to the Legislature,” said Andrew Redfern, a GRC member. “I know they do a lot of things, not only for the state as a whole but also for the university. We want to show our appreciation, even if it’s in such a small way as giving them some of the world’s best ice cream.”
Aggie Ice Cream Day, a tradition for several years now, is the day when USU shows appreciation to the state government by handing out free Aggie Ice Cream to the Legislators and their staffs.
“I enjoy the Aggie Ice Cream,” said David Pulsipher, performance audit director in the state auditor’s office. “Aggie Ice Cream Day at the Capitol is probably one of the better days of the session.”
The GRC, under the leadership of Student Advocate Vice President Casey Saxton, is the official lobbying group for USU. As such, one of their duties is to visit the Capitol periodically and speak to the Legislature on behalf of USU.
“If I were to give (our cooperation) a letter grade, I’d give it an A,” Redfern said. “Even if they can’t carry out what we need to get done, they want to let us know why and work with us in other ways.”
Saxton said he feels the Legislature works well with USU.
“To be honest I think they like us a lot,” Saxton said.
In addition to the GRC and USUSA showing appreciation to the Legislature, the Legislature as well as Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox demonstrated their appreciation to the students for their efforts in helping their classmates register to vote.
“The Campus Cup means a lot to the Lieutenant Governor,” said David May, special assistant to the Lieutenant Governor. “(College kids) are the next generation. They’re the ones coming up and the ones who are going to be making decisions. It’s important to get them involved.”
In order to win the Campus Cup, members of the GRC and the USUSA registered nearly 1,000 students. In collaboration with USU College Republicans and College Democrats, these groups worked to ensure they’d exceed the numbers achieved by schools like Brigham Young University, University of Utah and last year’s champion, Salt Lake Community College.
“It was a lot of work. Everybody put in two or three hours at least,” Redfern said. “We’d table in the TSC, then we’d go out door to door and do all that. We just really wanted to make sure Utah State came out with a victory in the Campus Cup.”
While the students enjoyed receiving recognition for their achievements thus far, they continued to emphasize that more can be done.
“I think moving forward, it’s important for students to get involved in the political process,” Saxton said. “It’s important for them to vote. It’s important for them to speak up to their elected officials on policies that affect them.”
— levi.henrie@aggiemail.usu.edu