ASG takes on Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After two days of meetings with lawmakers and policy advocates, 49 delegates from the UNC Association of Student Governments will return to North Carolina more confident in exercising the association’s influence and more aware of its limitations.

“This really is just the beginning,” said ASG President Amanda Devore. “We can’t just sit on all the information we’ve gained.”

ASG delegates from 14 system campuses visited the offices of North Carolina’s congressional representatives and senators Wednesday and spent all of Thursday meeting with officials from higher education advocacy groups.

This was the association’s first large-scale lobbying trip to Washington, although Jonathan Ducote, ASG director of federal relations and former ASG president, made periodic trips to the area during the academic year. He did not attend this trip due to illness.

Lois Rice, an expert in higher education finance and a guest scholar with the Brookings Institute, said she was encouraged to see students taking a more active role in the debate at the federal level.

“It seems to me that student groups can play a very, very significant role,” she said. “To my knowledge, historically, (students) really weren’t in view.”

But, Rice added, student groups should consider meeting with the members of Congress who exert the most influence over education policy, and not just those from their home state. “I think their own delegations are not enough,” she said.

Matt Owens, federal relations officer for the Association of American Universities, said professional advocacy groups focus their efforts on the leadership of key congressional committees.

“They are the ones who are going to have the first crack at drafting those pieces of legislation,” he said.

But Owens, who spoke with ASG delegates on Thursday, added that home state legislators are more likely to listen to student concerns.

“That is who’s going to pay the most attention to your voice,” he said. “Those legislators can use that as they are in committee negotiations to say, ‘Hey, this is what I’m hearing from my constituents.’”

That was exactly the thought behind the association’s decision to meet only with N.C. representatives, said Matt Liles, ASG vice president for legislative affairs.

“You always have more pull when you can say you’re a constituent,” he said.

The ASG also met with Wilbert Bryant, deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs in the U.S. Department of Education.

Bryant, a presidential appointee, said it was the first time he had been invited to meet with a student association.

ASG delegates pressed Bryant about programs cut out of the White House budget, and he told the group that only a handful were likely to see actual cuts once the budget passes through Congress.

“Stay tuned for those,” he said. “It’ll be a brutal fight.”

Devore said she hopes to see the ASG play a bigger role in that fight in the months and years ahead.

“I think we’re breaking some serious ground here in terms of what students are doing.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.