USSA lobbies in Washington

A dozen Pitt students spent a portion of their spring break, not at the beach, but in… A dozen Pitt students spent a portion of their spring break, not at the beach, but in Washington, D.C., lobbying for legislation, bonding with students from all across the United States and winning a national award.

The students participated in the United States Student Association’s 34th Annual Grassroots Legislative Conference. The USSA is the nation’s biggest and oldest student organization, representing millions of students from all over the country. The USSA encouraged grassroots movements and campaigns among student groups at Pitt since 1995 and in the 1970s and ’80s.

Students were mainly interested in the Higher Education Act, an act that increases grants and access for higher education as well as lowers student debt. This act is up for reauthorization every five years and this year has to be passed through Congress and the president once again.

USSA sponsored a campaign titled “H.E.A.R Students: Access Now!” to encourage legislators to support the HEA Reauthorization as well as encourage them to approve the students’ appropriations, rather than those proposed by President Bush.

“We all know people that dropped out from the tuition increases and we need to start coalitioning with some serious grassroots organizing to make any change,” said Andrea DeChellis, a delegate at the conference and SGB member.

Colleges and universities in Pennsylvania made up one of the smaller delegations at the conference.

“Most importantly for Pennsylvania was representation from the 14 state schools as well as Temple, and Penn State had been a part of planning it,” DeChellis said. “Of the 18 state and state-related schools all but Lincoln had some hand in this.”

The Pennsylvania schools were joined by delegations from all across the country including ones from California, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Texas.

The Pitt delegation, led by SGB members DeChellis and La’Tasha Mayes, lobbied Senators Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum and Representatives Mike Doyle, Chaka Fattah and Melissa Hart. Pitt delegation members broke up into groups of four to discuss HEAR with the legislators.

“Many representatives that we saw are supportive of our higher education needs and believe that the funding isn’t there but needs to be there,” sophomore delegate Todd Brandon Morris said.

Morris said one of the many revisions in the HEA is a repeal of drug-related suspension of financial aid. Almost 100,000 students in the last three years lost their financial aid because of a drug conviction.

“It’s double jeopardy,” he said, “Education is the best rehabilitation and this policy is bad because it takes away access from those who need it the most.”

The conference occurred from March 7 to 11 and while the delegates weren’t lobbying legislators they attended workshops, legislative briefings and caucuses. The caucuses put people from the same regions, backgrounds or ideologies together so they could discuss issues more pertinent to specific groups.

Morris said the caucuses made people more comfortable because the delegates could identify with each other.

“You can get a lot more people a lot more productive,” he said.

DeChellis said the conference was a great place to start networking with other students from across the country and learning about legislation.

Morris said was the overall motto of the conference was, “we are the students, higher education is a right and we want access now.”

At the Sunday night awards banquet, Pitt was honored for their Get Out the Vote campaign, which was held last fall.

As one of a handful of national awards presented by USSA, it recognized Pitt as an example to follow in getting students to register to vote.