UIA chooses delegates for statewide mock legislature
The Utah Intercollegiate Assembly leaders recently chose their delegates to represent the state’s higher-education institutions.
Jeremy Kidd, delegate chair for the UIA and a Utah State University graduate student in economics, said within the past month applications have been looked over and delegates have been chosen.
“The UIA is a mock legislature for college-age students in Utah,” he said, adding that Utah’s two private institutions are included.
Kidd said USU sends 15 people to the mock legislation in April, including 12 student delegates and three staff members.
Institutions send their delegates and staff to Salt Lake City to discuss resolutions in the capitol. They meet as senators and representatives and get to sit in the Senate and House chamber chairs to debate, Kidd said.
“Each school can bring three resolutions in April,” he said. “We debate back and forth for two days about them.”
Mike Waggoner, executive vice president of the Associated Students of USU, went through the applications with Kidd.
“We look at their experience in parliamentary procedure … to see how innovative and creative they are,” Waggoner said. “But, mostly we look for energetic students who like doing this sort of thing.”
This is Michelle Blackham’s, a junior in political science, first year with the UIA. Because of her interest in politics, she was appointed historian and secretary.
“I keep the minutes, help the administration keep order and keep a history of the UIA at Utah State,” she said.
Kidd, who has been involved with the UIA for three years, said every institution sends a different number of delegates, depending on its student population. USU sends the third most, after BYU and the University of Utah.
With every school bringing three resolutions, the two-day debate begins with 33 resolutions to consider. Gradually, the delegates narrow it down to a few, which they send to the Utah Council of Student Body Presidents, Kidd said. The council decides whether any are worth sending on to the Board of Regents for discussion.
For the next several months before April, USU delegates will decide on 10 ideas, or bills, and submit the top three to ASUSU for approval.
Some bills in the past have addressed tuition breaks for international students, privatization of social security numbers for students and late-night transportation on and off campus for students living off campus, Kidd said.
USU’s UIA has just started coming up with ideas to submit in April. Kidd said some on the list include requiring universities to provide some sort of debt counseling for students with loans or credit cards, increasing students’ rights as tenants when living off campus, and requiring the state to match monetary alumni funds in some way.
Blackham said, “It’s a really great program to help students get involved and get legislative experience.”
Schools get to learn from one another, she said.
Waggoner agreed.
“Being part of UIA is a great experience,” he said. “You learn a lot.”
Kidd, who runs the group’s weekly meetings, said he is involved with UIA because he’s a political nut.
“It just seemed like the easiest way to feed the political bug,” he said.
Meetings are held every Thursday at 7:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center. Anyone is invited to step in and listen to different issues being discussed, Kidd said.
–emilieholmes@cc.usu.edu