Students from several UW campuses across the state met at the state Capitol with one goal—to lobby together at the Capitol.
The UW System Student Representatives lobbied state officials Thursday, following Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal. Allowing students to opt out of segregated fees was the top issue according to Jacob Schimmel, president of UW-La Crosse Student Association.
The group is in favor of UW System funding and against allowing students the chance of opting out of segregated fees among other important topics, said UW-River Falls student body president Chris Morgan.
“There are a number of legislatures that really don’t know what exactly segregated fees are, so I think it’s just important to let them know about that before delving into that persuasion piece,” Schimmel said. “That probably took up, honestly, close to half of the meeting time.”
After attending the lobbying day, UW-River Falls student body vice president James VandenBergh said he thought UW System Student Representatives’ push against allowing student to opt out of segregated fees would be one of the most likely to go in their favor.
“I think [segregated fees] are the most compelling argument for us because if it does pass, and if students decide to opt out, then there’s a potential for student government to really lose a lot of its power and the weight that it holds – the little weight that it holds, actually,” VandenBergh said.
Student government groups throughout the UW System are planning individual campus initiatives as part of their efforts.
The Associated Students of Madison Legislative Affairs Committee plans to reach out to registered student organizations and General Student Services Fund groups to get them involved in lobbying efforts. They will continue to educate legislators and students about the importance of these issues and coordinate their efforts with other UW-System schools to predict the number of students affected.
“One of the things I’ve been doing and trying to do before we really get athletes and board members involved in the campaign, is me going to practices and also org meetings and talking to them for five or ten minutes,” Schimmel said of the UW-La Crosse campus where athletics receive segregated fee funding. “I think it’s going to take more effort there.”
Although the UW System schools have worked together on the lobbying efforts, the different campuses throughout the state do not always have aligning viewpoints.
“You attend a Reps meeting and you can find out pretty quickly that there is a line between student governments that are more left-leaning and student governments that are more right-leaning,” VandenBergh said. “There are few schools that are for it [the budget]. For the most part, most of the schools are against it.”
