At its meeting last Thursday night, the Senate passed a motion to create a Student Lobbying Corps. Part of the motion, which passed unanimously, read, “Recognizing the burden faced by students and the necessity of prompt and decisive action, we, the Student Senate, hereby establish the Student Lobbying Corps (SLC) as an ad hoc committee to lobby on behalf of the student body on both a state and federal level.”
The SLC was one of the priorities outlined in Grand Marshal Max Yates ’06 Agenda for Rensselaer that he ran on. According to Yates’ campaign material, one of his goals was going to be to “develop [a] Student Lobbying Corps that advocates for state and national financial aid programs, greater N.Y. State student research funding, as well as ad hoc issues that affect the students of RPI.”
Senator Mike Goldenberg ’05, who chairs the newly created SLC, explained this “was something we intended to do before,” but that the catalyst that really got it started was the fact that the Perkins loan program had been cut in President George W. Bush’s budget. While an amendment did pass the U.S. Senate to have this cut reversed, it was not agreed upon jointly by the houses.
According to Goldenberg, Vice President for Finance Virginia Gregg called the proposal to eliminate the Perkins program a “silent killer.” He explained that the program is for students with demonstrated need and that if the Institute did not have funding for the program, this elimination could raise cost for all students in order to make up the difference. He emphasized this is “definitely something of great importance,” and that a lot of students are not aware of it.
Goldenberg said that organizations similar to the SLC do not exist at many schools and that they “are building this up from the ground.” He said that the best strategy for lobbying on the Perkins issue would probably be to work with Institute office in Washington, D.C., as they have experience.
The chair of the SLC also noted that lobbying on the state level for financial aid would also be important. He noted that reductions in TAP are often contemplated and that any changes to TAP are also very important.
At the meeting where the corps was created, some Senators said that the original motion should not have discussed the Perkins loans as they felt it limited the purpose of the SLC. This was then amended. Goldenberg said that one other issue it could eventually address is students’ rights. One such example pertains to copyright. Those interested in getting involved with the SLC can contact any Senator or the GM.
Also of note at last week’s meeting was a lengthy debate about the consideration of obtaining a file sharing service. Opinions seemed to vary as to whether or not everyone wanted such a service, and the new Family and Entertainment Copyright Act of 2005 that President Bush signed into law last week was also discussed.
Derek Murawsky ’07, chair of the Technology Affairs Committee, stressed that no firm decisions have been made yet and that what happens next will largely depend on student feedback received from a Senate survey that was scheduled to be sent out yesterday.
Murawsky said that they are still in the planning stage and they may not even contract a sharing service at all if the feedback indicates that students do not want one. He added that, pending the feedback received, they would like to have a beta service in place for the fall—but only if it came at no or very limited cost.
