D.C. Lobbying Trip–Kathleen Murphy

On April 16th, 10 members of the Legislative Action committee as well as some representatives from within SGA road tripped to Washington D.C. to lobby for financial aid and student loan forgiveness. We loaded into a 12 passenger JMU facilities management bus, listened to all kinds of music, and asked ice breakers such as “What is your favorite childhood movie?” Once we reached D.C., we checked into the Marriott and had an organizational meeting. After our meeting we all loaded into “the party bus” and went to dinner. We scarfed down Chipotle, Noodles & Co, ice cream and gelato.

With bellies full of food we went to Katie Stolp’s house, met her parents and watched part of Dodgeball on TV. We all got back to the hotel, went over the details of our bills concerning loan interest rates and loan debt forgiveness (S. 2051, H.R. 3826, H.R. 4170), and came up with talking points.

The alarms went off around 5:30 and we all stumbled out of bed. Everyone got dressed, and may I say, we we’re a sharp looking group. We hopped on the metro, were packed in like sardines for most of the way, and arrived at our stop after a 30 minute commute. Our first appointment was with Tom Culligan who is a JMU alum and works for a member of Congress. He gave us tips, approaches on how to talk to staff, and even had a pie chart with debt and spending numbers. He was fantastic and was very helpful. From there we broke into our separate groups, with 3-4 people each.

Each group had a different list of legislators offices to find to talk to. In total we spoke to over 25 offices and met with multiple staffers who have direct contact with members of Congress. Overall, our meetings were very well received. We handed out “leave behinds” which highlighted our talking points and those were a hit. We turned some heads. Everyone was professional, we knew our facts, and we asked tough questions. After our meetings we went to Good Stuff for lunch; we all just about inhaled our food, we were so hungry.

As senior, I was very pleased with my last (sniffle sniffle) lobbying trip. I couldn’t have asked for a better trip. Well… maybe if I was offered a job… All kidding aside, it was a great trip. We learned a lot and had the ability to bond as members of Student Government.  I’m proud to say that this group got a lot accomplished in short period of time and that I got to be a part of it.

JMU Student Body President Reallocates $500,000 for Spring Break Trip

Student fees meant to be budgeted for student organizations like University Program Board, Student Ambassadors, Panhellenic, Interfraternity Council, and more are moved to his personal account.

President Pat Watral released the following statement today:

“Honestly, I didn’t see the money being used for anything at the time so I have decided to allocate it for an official spring break trip to Panama City Beach, FL for spring break with my friends.

I understand many of you now disapprove of the decision, but I’m sorry, the funds are now locked up in the all-inclusive Bikini Beach Resort and my tab at the oceanfront bar.

My friends Simon, G, and Chris are so pumped for this trip, because we are seniors and want to spend as much time together as possible before we graduate.  I would hate to tell them that I had to cancel our plans because just Student Ambassadors was afraid they wouldn’t be able to give tours next year and UPB wants to have a Spring Concert.  Besides, I did spend the money on a concert. It just the concert is private and it is in Florida and it’s next week.

Again, I am sorry many of you are so upset about this issue.  I swear I will post all my pictures in a special album on Facebook so everyone can see them and imagine they were at the wet t-shirt concert with us.”**

OKAY LET’S BE REAL.  I would never do something so horrifically irresponsible.  I am honored to be JMU’s Student Body President and have incredible respect both for the allocation of student tuition money and for the organizations that deserve the funds.

Tuesday February 28 the Student Government Association will be debating and approving the budgets of the other nine Front-End-Budgeted (FEB) student organizations on our campus. 

Front-End-Budgeted simply means that the organization has proven that they put on so many large events throughout the year for JMU students, that they do not have the time to hold fundraising for each one.  Therefore, administration and SGA create their budget BEFORE the start of the year that they can use.

Those FEB organizations are: Student Ambassador, University Program Board, Inter-Fraternity Council, Panhellenic, EARTH Club, Madison Equality, Black Student Alliance, C.A.R.E and the NCAAP.  (SGA is also a FEB group, but we cannot decide our own budget)

All JMU students should care about how the SGA will allocate your tuition money.  I hope my little story above shocked enough students into paying attention to how these budgets will be allocated. It is my sincerest wish that students would take part in this process by voicing their opinion to members of the SGA.

Students can make a difference by:

• Stopping by the SGA office to speak with SGA members (Taylor 203 above TDU)
• Attending the SGA meeting Tuesday night at 5:15pm in Festival Highlands room for FEB night where they can voice their opinions.
• Tweeting @SGAjmu about #FEBNIGHT

Being a JMU student is all about taking part in important decisions in our society, and educating ourselves so that we may be the change! See you at FEB Night.
Pat Watral

Student Body President

**This story is NOT real. Pat did NOT take the money. The story was meant as an attention grabber. Thank you**

Richmond Lobbying Trip–Rachel Francis

On Thursday February 16^th 2012, six SGA students drove from JMU to Virginia’s capital city to lobby with Virginia State legislatures. Our agenda started early in the morning with us attending over seven meetings with VA Senators and delegates to discuss the lack of financial aid offered to college students.

We teamed up with the lobbyist group Virginia CAN (College Access Network) who were the leaders of the Virginia21 campaign. Their main purpose was to poll students asking them for the amount of debt they will have by the end of their college years. After a total of 10,000 signatures, with JMU contributing over 1,400 of them, the average Virginia college student’s post-graduate debt surmounted to over $100,000.

The experience was very exciting for me because I had never been involved with the state legislature at such a personal level. This trip was my first lobbying experience but was not for sophomore Legislative Action committee chair, Shevy Chaganti and fellow committee member, sophomore Ben Copper. Their previous experience helped newcomer lobbyist Courtney Herb, a freshman in JMU’s student government organization, as well as myself. We learned to personally connect with each Senator and delegate and to seek out our own local constituents while attempting to persuade them about our financial aid problems.

We ultimately wanted the VA education budget to get revamped in hopes of utilizing every penny the state gives college institutions. In comparison to previous Richmond lobbying trips, Shevy believes that this one was the most effective trips SGA has taken. Later on this semester, a larger group of SGA students will be representing James Madison University in Washington D.C.

 

Left to right: Rachel Francis, Courtney Herb, Taylor Vollman, Shevy Chaganti, Ben Copper and Brian Estep

Do You Want More Financial Aid? Join the Campaign!

In 2009-2010 in-state public college students borrowed over $657 million dollars to pay for college.  Students here at JMU borrowed over $46 million dollars.  That’s crazy–and these numbers are going up.  Almost all of us need help paying for college.  If you want more financial aid, sign this petition. Want the online version? Click here!

Virginia21, a college student advocacy group in Richmond that the SGA supports, is running a campaign called “What’s Your Number?” The campaign is to get students to talk about how much debt we have so we can show how much help we need.  In January, the General Assembly in Richmond is going to debate how much money the state invests in JMU, other colleges, and financial aid. Next year, the state is going to be short financial aid funding by almost $200 million.

We need as many people from JMU as possible to join the “What’s Your Number?” campaign.  Virginia21 and students from all of the colleges are going to deliver these signatures to our representatives when they are talking about the budget, so they know we need help.

Twitter Town Hall/Campaign Announcement — December 8 @ 12PM – 

To formally announce the campaign, they are going for unconventional.  Instead of a press conference, they thought to involve more people by announcing the “What’s Your Number?” over twitter.  This way  grabbing the attention of the pres,s the Governor, and other General Assembly members will happen simultaneously. Imagine if you are a reporter or an elected official and suddenly you are getting hundreds of tweets telling you to read a letter that almost 5,000 people have signed….that’ll certainly get their attention.

Here is the lists of reporters and elected officials to follow and tweet at on Dec. 8.

Want to talk to some of the other Universities involved? Here is their Twitter list.

The petition is just getting started – 

So far we are at 5,000 signers.  That’s incredible, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what we can do.

So many people are touched by student debt, and so many people need help paying for college.  This effort has the potential to run like crazy.  We need everybody to start talking to more people.  Here is the petition again, so print it out, take it to your classes, take it to club meetings, and everywhere.