Although the UNC-system Association of Student Governments holds membership rights in the nationwide political lobbying organization, finances prevented the ASG from sending any student delegates to the conference, to be held in Milwaukee, Wis. from July 22 to 29. Because funding is unavailable, the ASG leaves it to the system?s 16 individual campuses to send delegates, ASG President Andrew Payne said.
?The problem we have with participating in those events is the ASG doesn?t have the financial base to send students to events like that,? Payne said. ?We can?t afford that, so we have to rely on the individual institutions to make the commitment.? But although Payne expected UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Wilmington to send at least a few students to the event, UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body President Justin Young said no students volunteered. ?Basically, we were trying to create a group of people to go,? Young said. ?Because of the timing and funding, it was a tough situation and our plans pretty much fell through.?
Payne said he understood the time and financial commitment makes it difficult for students to represent the system. But he said he hopes UNC will be able to send delegates to future conferences, because the USSA is valuable to students. ?The value of (the USSA) is that it provides us a connection with what?s going on in Washington from a student perspective,? Payne said. ?We do have some UNC students who sit on the board of directors of USSA. So the system will be represented in some capacity.? Young said UNC-Chapel Hill senior Erica Smiley is one of those board members, and will be attending the conference in that capacity.
The conference, which will focus on setting the USSA?s agenda for the coming year, aims to bring together students from across the country to organize grass-roots lobbying campaigns around common issues, according to the official program. Young said he hopes to learn more about the USSA, which came under fire recently for focussing on politically liberal agendas, rather than purely on issues of students and education.
?It has been a heated issue on campus,? he said. ?I want to be able to get enough information about the organization so we can answer the age-old question of what USSA could do for Chapel Hill and what our involvement should be. ?We?ll look into it and try to find out more, but again there are bigger issues here on campus, like tuition increases and campus safety, that occupy my time ? those are the things on my mind.?
Geoff Wessel can be reached at vrooom@email.unc.edu.
