Nevada Students Lobby in Carson City

Interview,

March 17, 2015

We recently talked with Elias Benjelloun, the Student Body President of the Consolidated Students of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV CSUN). He spoke to us about a recent lobby day attended by Nevada students from across the state.

Please tell us your name and current position in student government. Please also tell us a little bit about who you are: your year, area of study, any other background info you’d like to share.
My name is Elias Benjelloun and I serve as the undergraduate Student Body President of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I represent the 23,000 undergraduates at UNLV and oversee a $1.2 million annual budget. I am graduating this semester with my degree in biology and plan on pursuing graduate programs here at UNLV where I can continue serving my local communities.Read more

Louisiana State University Campaigns Against Budget Cuts

Interview

March 2, 2015

Louisiana students are currently facing deep proposed cuts to the state's higher education budget. Bradley Guin, a student leader from the Louisiana State University Student Government, told us about their efforts to prevent these cuts this spring.

Please tell us your name and current position in student government. Please also tell us a little bit about who you are: your year, major, any other background info you’d like to share.
My name is Bradley Guin and I serve as the State Capitol Advisor for the LSU Student Government. I essentially serve as the liaison between LSU SG and state leaders and legislators on matters affecting LSU and higher education. I’m currently a senior studying political science, and I will be attending law school next fall.Read more

WWU Student Gets #Lobbylicious in Olympia

Interview,

February 17, 2015

Heather givrd testimony on SB 5140, which would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote.
Heather giving testimony on SB 5140, which would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote.

We recently had the opportunity to talk with Heather Heffelmire, the Legislative Liaison for the Associated Students of Western Washington University (ASWWU). In that position, she is spending the winter quarter in Olympia as a full-time lobbyist working on behalf of the students at WWU. She's been posting online about the experience under the hashtag #Lobbylicious. You can read her blog posts about lobbying here, here, here, and here.Read more

University of Iowa Crowdsources Project Ideas

Interview

November 20, 2014

iowa_ideas_logoWe recently had the opportunity to interview a student leader from the University of Iowa Student Government about Iowa Ideas, their innovative new program to get the student body to share ideas about campus problems and how to fix them.

Please tell us your name and current position in student government. Please also tell us a little bit about who you are: your year, major, any other background info you’d like to share.
My name is Jeffrey Ding and I am the Vice President of the University of Iowa Student Government. I am a junior studying political science, economics, and Chinese. I was born in Shanghai, China, and moved to the United States when I was three.

How did you get involved in UISG?
I was chosen as a freshman senator (five spots are reserved for first-years), so I was able to get involved right away.

Please describe Iowa Ideas. What does it do?
Iowa Ideas is a crowd-sourced idea generation site, which functions as a "Reddit" for initiatives to improve the University of Iowa. Anyone affiliated with the University of Iowa can contribute ideas to the site and vote up other ideas they think would be good to implement.Read more

Duke Uses Research to Be More Effective

Interview

November 4, 2014

The Duke Student Government (DSG) recently launched a new program, the DSG Research Unit, to study campus issues and help the DSG make more informed decisions on campus policies. We interviewed Abhi Sanka, the DSG Executive Vice President, to find out more about the research program.

Please tell us your name and current position in student government. Please also tell us a little bit about who you are: your year, major, any other background info you’d like to share.
My name is Abhi Sanka and I am the current Executive Vice President of Duke Student Government. As Executive Vice President, my responsibility is to broadly oversee week-to-week management of Student Government’s operations, and preside over our Student Government Senate. I am a Junior at Duke, pursuing a major in Public Policy and a Certificate in Genome Sciences and Policy. This past summer I interned at the Institute of Medicine on the Roundtable for Translating Genomic Based Research into Health, and my academic passions lie in politics, health policy, and personalized medicine.Read more

Get Your Nonpartisan Voter Guides

Great Programs

October 28, 2014

Our friends at the Campus Election Engagement Project have created a series of nonpartisan voter guides for most of the big Senate and Gubernatorial races around the country. The guides combine data from Project Vote Smart and other reliable sources to show you where the candidates stand on a variety of important issues.

These guides are a great tool for your get-out-the-vote efforts. One reason that many students give for choosing not to vote is because they feel like they don't know enough about the candidates to make an informed choice. Handing out these voter guides is one way to help them find the information they need.

You can download the guides for your state from the CEEP website.

Bring Us to Your Campus

Services

October 9, 2014

It's still early in the fall, but we're already starting to set our training schedule for the winter and spring. Now's a great time to start thinking about bringing us to your campus next term.

Some of the services we can provide for your student government include:

Retreats - We can facilitate a retreat to help your student government prepare for the spring term. We'll help you brainstorm ideas, come up with strategies, and flesh out a detailed action plan.

Skills Trainings - Your members don't always come to student government with all of the tools they need to be successful. We can come train them on key skills like how to run effective committee meetings, how to plan a big event, and how to do effective publicity.

Lobby Days - The spring is when many state legislatures make decisions about higher education funding and other critical issues. We can help you plan and carry out a lobby day at the state house so that students from your campus can speak directly to decision makers.

Campaign Trainings - We can help you plan your big projects for the spring and give you the skills to carry them out. Whether you plan to tackle financial aid funding or sexual assault prevention or campus sustainability, we can set you up to succeed.

Please contact us today to get more information on our services and what we can do for you.

Get Our Student Vote Toolkit

Services

September 2, 2014

Student_Vote_Toolkit_coverThe election is just two months away, which means that voter registration season is upon us.

That's why we've published our new Student Vote toolkit for student governments, which explains the ins and outs of how to run an effective nonpartisan voter registration and get-out-the-vote drive on your campus.

The toolkit is based on the experience of the Student Government Resource Center and our partners working on hundreds of campuses in recent election cycles. We hope you'll find these resources as useful as we have.

We've also included chapters on how to build a coalition, generate visibility, work with the local election registrar, and more.

Download the PDF today and share it with the rest of your student government.

Voter Registration for the 21st Century

Services

August 20, 2014

studentvotedotorgThe first big wave of colleges and universities started classes this week. And since it's an even-numbered year, that also means that it's the beginning of voter registration season on campus.

Lots of student governments run voter registration drives, but many don't know how to incorporate online voter registration into their efforts. It's time for that to change.

That's why we're helping student governments this fall to add online tactics into their voter registration drives using StudentVote.org.Read more

Leadership Opportunities for Campus Women

Events

August 7, 2014

Our friends at AAUW (the American Association of University Women) are hosting a webinar about campus-based leadership programs for women on Tuesday, August 19th, at 2:30 and 7 p.m. EDT.  On this call, students can get an inside look at the following programs:

Read more