BY Kelsie Miller
Staff Reporter
The Washington Student Association (WSA) held its first 2014 General Assembly meeting at Central last Saturday, where their legislative agenda for the 2015 session was voted on and approved. College affordability and voter access were identified as priority items.
College affordability is an essential campaign that can mean a lot of different things to students, but the general concept is something students should care about, said WSA Organizing Director JulieAnne Behar. Even if students do not have the time to volunteer for all of the campaigns that WSA will be working on, they should focus on activities in the fall, Behar said.
“Students at Central can look for a WSA CWU chapter on campus this year doing letter writing, call days to legislatures and other kinds of advocacy that ultimately students will feel when they’re paying their tuition and when they’re looking at textbook prices,” Behar said. “It’s really important to hear from students this fall because college affordability is going to be one of the primary campaigns.”
Carly Roberts, student body president at Western Washington University and the newly elected WSA president, also expressed excitement about the coming year.
“I’m most excited about the opportunity to advocate for increased affordability and accessibility of higher education,” Roberts said. “Since this is a budget year, this will be a really key year for all of our financial items, such as college affordability.”
College affordability is a topic that E. B. Vodde, a student at Eastern Washington University and the outgoing WSA president, is passionate about as well. Vodde said that he hopes the legislature will see the talented students in Washington State and realize that they represent the future of Washington’s economy.
“I don’t think you will find a single person in Washington who believes that college is currently affordable to students,” Vodde said. “The legislature has kept that in mind the last two years, I know that they’ll keep that in mind in upcoming years and I’m glad that all stakeholders are on the same page – that something needs to be done about the cost of higher education.”
Along with the priority items, the ancillary items voted onto the legislative agenda include gender-neutral bathrooms on college campuses, electronic benefit transfer (EBT) use on college campuses, increased resources for advising, and whistle-blower protection for student government elected officials.
With such a successful 2014 legislative session this year, students in Washington state should be confident in the WSA for upcoming years, Behar said.
“A lot of legislatures and other organizations considered this a do-nothing year in Olympia, but I think students were really the exception,” Behar said. “[Students] were able to secure a tuition freeze for the second year in a row. We were able to pass the Washington State DREAM/Real Hope Act, we were able to waive the one year waiting period for student veterans to pay in state tuition and a number of other items that really ensured that it was a successful session for students.”
With the success of last year’s WSA in mind, Behar, Vodde and Roberts are hopeful for the years to come. Vodde said that the credible working relationships that the WSA formed with members of the legislature and the administrations at each of WSA’s campuses will only improve in the coming year.
In order to keep things moving forward, Behar said that the WSA will be focusing on vote work in the fall to ensure that students have a lot of electoral power for the 2015 session.
“I’m really looking forward to building off of our vote work from last year to ensure that students are well represented and we have a lot of electoral power going into the 2015 session,” Behar said.
