Members of the Executive Staff and Legislative Council share their major plans
UCSU this semester plans to focus on diversity issues and encouraging Colorado legislators to lower tuition.
“The first big thing we’re having is a (tuition) forum,” said Hadley Brown(cq), a Tri-Executive for UCSU. “We’ve got a pretty impressive panel of policy makers and administrators and key decision makers at the state level.”
The forum, which will be held on Jan. 28 from 5 to 8 p.m. in Humanities 1B50, will be a discussion of the current lack of state funding for higher education and possible reasons and solutions for this problem. The panelists include Colorado General Assembly Senators Joshua Penry and Ron Tupa, former Congressman David Skaggs, CU Regent Cindy Carlisle, CU Associate Vice Chancellor of Planning, Budget & Analysis Steve McNally and analyst from the Office of State Planning and Budgeting Chad Marturano.
“The idea is that students can hear directly from the policy makers on why it is that higher education is so poorly funded in the state,” Brown said. “(Students) will be able to ask questions of these people about all kinds of things like why it is that tuition prices keep heightening.”
UCSU also plans to have four students from the UCSU executive staff travel along with representatives from other Big XII schools to Washington, D.C. March 10 to 14 to lobby as a whole on behalf of higher education for more government funding.
“(These students) will set up meetings with congress people and aids and key people in the higher education scene in Washington,” Brown said.
Diversity is another issue the UCSU plans to focus on this semester.
“In February we’re going to be having a diversity summit for students and we’ll be participating in the diversity sample on Feb 2 for prospective high school seniors,” said Sally Ho, UCSU Director of Public Relations.
According to Brown, UCSU will work more this semester to help students become more informed about diversity issues. To accomplish this, they will be working closely with SORCE and the Women’s Resource Center on diversity projects.
UCSU will also become a part of the CU 101 committee, a pilot program that was started a few years ago to develop a class that would deal with diversity issues on campus. Eventually, this class would be something that all students would be required to take.
“One problem is that students haven’t been as much a part of the design as they should have been,” Brown said. “We are going to have five student positions on the CU 101 committee.”
Legislative Council will be focusing primarily on their financial budget hearings this semester, which will begin in approximately two weeks and end right before spring break said Legislative Council President M. Boyce Postma. Postma said that because of raising minimum wage and insurance rates, cost centers like the UMC, Wardenburg Health Center and the Recreation Center will definitely be needing more funding, requiring a raise in student fees.
Legislative Council will also be working with Regent Michael Carrigan on his recent call for a campus-wide smoking ban. Postma said he believes that a bill containing some type of restriction on smoking, such as designating specific smoking zones, will definitely be passed this semester.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Julie Ryan at ryanja@colorado.edu.
