Students strike renewed alliance with NSHE leaders

September 13, 2010 by Haley Etchison 

NSA meeting with chancellor, chair, vice chair yields agreement on lobbying tactics

RENO – Nevada System of Higher Education leaders and student government officers from across the state strengthened their agreement to rally legislative support for education funding at a meeting Thursday.

Chancellor Dan Klaich, Board of Regents Chair James Dean Leavitt and Vice Chair Jason Geddes sat down with members of the Nevada Student Alliance to talk strategy, before the board’s second day of meetings began at Truckee Meadows Community College last week.

NSA Chair Kyle George, who is president of UNLV’s Graduate and Professional Student Association, raised concerns about alignment between NSHE’s lobbying efforts and student activism in the Legislature.

“In the last two [legislative] sessions, we as a body never felt like we were working in sync with the board,” George told the chancellor and regents.
Leavitt assured the NSA that history would not be allowed to repeat itself in that regard.

Geddes agreed that cooperation is key for both parties, but urged students to act on their own for the sake of greater impact.

“I think we should know what the other is doing, but coordinating, I think, hurts us,” Geddes said. “I think sometimes we need to tell different stories, and to tell the story from different perspectives completes the story.”

George agreed that the actions of students sometimes necessarily differ from those of NSHE leaders, giving the example of a student walkout conducted at UNLV last spring.

He said that though the board of regents could not officially endorse that effort, the impact of students’ actions was bolstered by support from individuals like Leavitt, who attended the rally against budget cuts, which accompanied the demonstration.

George expressed hope that students will continue to benefit from individuals’ actions — and their professional connections — as the February start of the new legislative session approaches.

“The board of regents is in a very unique position because you are elected and you have personal relationships with people in the Legislature,” he said. “You have closer relationships with people in the Legislature than we do at the moment and we need to leverage that.”

Leavitt explained that the benefit may go both ways. He said students’ work lobbying lawmakers year-round provides critical backup for NSHE’s budget requests.

“When you guys are going through the halls and sitting in the offices [of legislators], telling your stories… that just reinforces everything from our side,” he said. “Then Dan (Klaich) drops the plan.”

Klaich agreed. “I loved the day you all came to the Legislature and talked and made them cry,” the chancellor said, referring to students’ testimony in a Legislature budget committee meeting during the last session.

Klaich said the only strategic error NSHE and students made in lobbying efforts during that session was in timing.

“We should plan some day much earlier in the session when they can see you [and] spend some more quality time, not just jammed into a committee meeting,” he said.

NSA members said they want to get the timing right on an initiative that aims to garner lawmakers’ support for education funding and to educate voters on their elected officials’ stances on the issue.

The group is hoping to send out pledge cards to every person running in the Nov. 2 general elections asking them to commit to a position on education funding before the Oct. 2 start of early voting.

The candidates would also receive questionnaires asking them to detail their views on issues that affect education. But the clock is ticking and some NSA members are worried that the project would begin too late to be effective.

“I think you’re going to have a diminishing return the day after the election,” Klaich said. “You’re not going to get a lot of responses after Nov. 2.”

But George argued that the knowledge gained from the surveys would be profitable no matter when it was received. “Even if we miss the election cycle and we don’t get questionnaires back, we still need to know where they stand,” he said.

The NSA plans to publish the raw results of their research on candidates’ positions on education without analysis. The group hopes to make their view clear that no matter where voters fall on the political spectrum, education is a crucial issue.

“Higher education isn’t a political issue but it’s an issue that’s going to determine the future of Nevada,” said UNLV undergraduate Student Body President David Rapoport.
George said the goal is to inspire candidates from both sides of the aisle to say, “We don’t agree on much but we agree on higher education.”