On Wednesday, about 50 students called state legislators to lobby for increased funding for higher education.
ASUO ran the event, called WTF Phone Bank, in the EMU Call Center.
Natalie Fisher, the External Vice President for ASUO who was running the session, has seen success with their mission. “We have had really good turnout,” said Fisher.
UO students teamed up with student groups from Oregon State University and Lane Community College as part of the phone bank.
With the rejection of UO’s request for a tuition increase last week, the future of the university’s budget has raised a lot of concern.
“If we got $100 million that would keep our tuition at 5 percent for in-state students without having to make drastic cuts to the university, which is what we’re looking at right now,” said Fisher.
(image courtesy of ASUO)
The phone bank has already received positive feedback from individuals in Salem, but ASUO feels that their job isn’t done with just this phone bank.
“We’re letting them know that we’re not going away, and that we’re not going to get to the end of the year and say, ‘Oh, I’m graduating’, or, ‘Oh, summer’s about to come so I’m not going to pay attention to this,’” said Fisher. “Their legislative session is going on into the summer so our work for higher education funding is going to do that as well.”
ASUO would like to see the dialogue between students and legislators continue and members would like to facilitate more events similar to this one to keep the communication open.
“We just want to give students a place to have a dialogue with state legislators, and get our voices heard and let them know that we’re still in this fight for [higher education] funding,” said Fisher.
Follow Erin Carey on Twitter: @elcarey
