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Byron Kimball | Freelancer<\/span><\/p>\n A large student turnout and multiple meetings with state legislators were just a few defining factors of this year\u2019s University Lobby Day on Feb. 15. <\/span><\/p>\n Advocates from seven Oregon universities and colleges, including Western, Portland State, Oregon State, University of Oregon, Southern Oregon, Eastern Oregon and Oregon Tech joined forces to advocate for increased state funding for higher education at the state capitol.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEnsuring that we have an accessible, affordable education is something we can agree on. It\u2019s why we\u2019re all here today,\u201d explained Ryan Hagemann, Vice President and General Counsel at Western. <\/span><\/p>\n The early hours of the event on the capitol steps featured performances from university pep bands and cameos from each university\u2019s mascot.<\/span><\/p>\n Students later filed into the capitol building\u2019s Senate hearing room for briefings on the day\u2019s proceedings, which included afternoon meetings with senators and representatives, panels by faculty members from each university, music performances by university choirs and a group photo. <\/span><\/p>\n A first for this year, students were paired into small groups based not on university, but on their legislative district and who their state representative is. According to Hagemann, this change was designed to help students understand the value of engaging with one another as constituents. And, as the intermingling of students and faculty from across the state soon demonstrated, build community between all seven universities. <\/span><\/p>\n The buzz of student and faculty voices was hard to miss when trawling through the capitol halls and chamber rooms. For Hagemann, who has been involved with University Lobby Day since 2013, the turnout was bigger than he remembered from years past. <\/span><\/p>\n It was clear that students involved were passionate about the endeavor. ASWOU, who helped organize the event, worked to ensure what Hagemann described as \u201cexcellent engagement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n ASWOU President Jessica Freeman was quick to express the importance of lobbying to have student voices heard. \u201cThe legislators care about student experiences, and they want to hear student voices,\u201d Freeman explained. \u201cI would highly recommend any and every student attend at least one University Lobby Day in their college career.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Contact the author at bkimball16@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n Photo by: Paul F. Davis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Byron Kimball | Freelancer A large student turnout and multiple meetings with state legislators were just a few defining factors of this year\u2019s University Lobby Day on Feb. 15. Advocates from seven Oregon universities and colleges, including Western, Portland State, Oregon State, University of Oregon, Southern Oregon, Eastern Oregon and Oregon Tech joined forces to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":7177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}