Higher Education Rally in Annapolis, October 2007

I just posted a follow-up to legislative lobbying that many of us participated in during the fall of 2007 over at USMstudents.  I thought you might might enjoy a few photos...







(Never thought I would see Steelwolf so happy in the presence of the Governor...)

After 90 days in Annapolis...

Each year, the Maryland General Assembly meets for 90 days from January to April. Last night, the 2008 Session ended. Here is a brief list of highlights from the session:

- no textbook-sale regulation was passed because the Senate and the House of Delegates could not come to agreement on minor details
- USM state funding increased 9% from last year
- UMBC state funding increased 8%
- with such funding, it seems as though Chancellor Kirwan is ready to propose a tuition freeze to the Board of Regents
- with a tuition freeze with the third straight year, Maryland public institutions will drop in cost from 6th in the nation (2005) to 16th (2008)

Governor O'Malley has worked hard over the past months with the legislature to maintain funding for higher education in order to keep tuition down. Even though the State is struggling economically, the Governor and the Legislature made higher education a priority by minimizing cuts from the Governor's proposed budget.

So where from here? In the coming weeks, I will be working with campus-based administrators, students, and faculty to see if we can address some of the issues related to textbook sales for the coming fall semester that were not addressed this session. These issues will include:
- publishing ISBN numbers, textbook editions, and other details on the selection of textbooks
- publishing this information well in advance of the start of the semester
- working with professors to submit textbook selections well in advance of the semester to give the bookstore ample time to place orders
- ensuring that professors are made aware of and consider the cost of potential textbook selections

Have questions, thoughts, or concerns? Contact me: (410) 294-8581 or joshmichael@umbc.edu

CGA in action this past week

i initially wanted to post parts of this as a comment on the Defining Marriage in MD wall but i thought it would be a good idea to post it as a new blog to show , many times we debate issues, and josh and i do not agree all the time, and the cga is not perfect- contrary to popular belief ;p

the past monday cga had a meeting to discuss what the course of action for the next month or so. heres my version of the minutes.

brian frazee is in the final steps of finalizing the red card initiative, which saves us students some change around the community when presented at a place of business. For more on the red card initiative go here-http://sga.umbc.edu/redcard/.

stephanie is heading up the voter registration. if you need to register to vote please do and if you need a registration card you can either print one out here or come pick one up at the sga office.

ive been brainstorming the idea of having a cga poll function on myUMBC so that we can, at times, get a better feel of what the 'beat' on campus is ive set up a mtg with collier jones in oit and am hoping to have that option ready to roll soon.

josh has been lobbying in annapolis pretty much every other day on textbook, tuition, and tuition reembursement legislation.

in other news josh and i have had an ongoing discussion about lobbying in regards to gay marriage legislation in annapolis.

ill try to quote myself. at the past cga mtg to provide my opinion-

'this is sticky. people have very strong opinions about this issue. one side or the other. it would be very difficult to represent the entire campus on this issue. regardless of our stance people will be pissed and polarized. abstenance is 100% effective at certain points in time.'

'there are ceratin bills that the entire campus (or pretty damn close to the entire campus) would be in favor of and by supporting the cga would give a voice to the entire campus in annapolis on these issues, (ie text books being cheaper, a dedicated source of funding for higher ed, tuition reembursement, etc.).'

just wanted to fill everyone in, briefly, what the cga has been doing.

A Day in Annapolis...

I just got back from Annapolis a few minutes ago. I attended for three main reasons today:
1. attend the Budget hearing for UMBC in the House of Delegates
2. attend a hearing on SB 15 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0015f.pdf), SB 40 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0040f.pdf), and SB 591 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0591f.pdf)-- all bills addressing in-state tuition for non-legal residents
3. attend a hearing on SB 81 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0081f.pdf) and SB 657 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0657f.pdf)- bills addressing the selection and sale of textbooks

Budget Hearing
At the Budget hearing in the House, President Hrabowski did a masterful job representing our institution. Highlighting the research strengths, diversity, rising retention rates, and others, Dr. Hrabowski impressed legislators. He highlighted some of our challenges, including a limited number of bachelor's degrees, our age, and cost-cutting measures over the past decade, he stressed the importance of full-funding. The Department of Legislative services suggested cutting 6.8 million from our budget--Dr. H stressed why it was so important for the legislature to maintain funding. Further questions were raised about our distribution of financial aid, comparing the rates of financial aid for athletes at UMBC to College Park. Our rates for need are reserved about 19% for athletes, while at College Park, the rate is 7%. Dr. Hrabowski responded that much of our "financial need" aid is hidden in the name of merit scholarship via the scholarship programs and university scholarships. He highlighted that this money is more likely to attract students when it is "prestigious." Yet, I think this is something we might want to look more into. Finally, questions were raised regarding the capacity and efficiency of our teacher education program. We have consistently decreased over the past few years and graduate somewhere around 40 teachers a year. Dr. Hrabowski distracted these comments by highlighting the Sherman Scholars program and our work in STEM (Science, techonology, engineering, and math) fields, as well as in high-needs schools. In fact, the highlight students for the presentation were two Sherman Scholars. Yet, what was not highlighted was our extremely low number of teachers and our inability to cosnsitently attract teacher candidates to pursue STEM fields outside of the Sherman program. In all, Dr. Hrabowski was masterful as usual--expect UMBC to fare well in the budget process.

In-state tuition for Illegal Aliens
I was out of the room for most of this hearing, but did have the opportunity to testify on Senate Bill 15. If you recall, SB 15 does not allow legal in-state residents, who currently receive in-state tuition discounts, to actually receive this commodity. Wherein students at UMBC would be significantly impacted, I spoke on behalf of the SGA against the use of the language "citizen" as opposed to "legal resident." I was specific in delineating that the UMBC SGA was not taking a position on the bill otherwise. An amendment ended up being proposed by the sponsor to change the language to allow legal residents to receive in-state tuition.

Many individuals came to speak for this bill. My analysis is that this bill will pass. It passed in 2003, but was vetoed by Governor Ehrlich. With a new Governor, I see this bill passing and being signed.


Textbook Legislation
Okay--so there are two major bills here that were up for consideration. The first, SB 81, requires universities to publish textbook lists once submitted by the professor. It also requires the publication of ISBN numbers to help students identify their textbook at other sources. I testified in support of this bill with slight amendments. First, I testified explaining that textbook selections should not be submitted until the process of ensuring textbook availability is finalized. Sometimes, if a professor selects a book that is unavailable, they are forced to select a different book. This would ensure that students do not purchase the wrong textbook in this case. We also proposed a deadline for submission of textbook selections six weeks before classes begin. Our comments were in agreement with those of the University System of Maryland.

SB 657- This bill is very complex (see links attached). Here are the points we talked on:

• Support requiring textbook publishers to provide information regarding the costs and changes to textbooks (B & C)
• Oppose quantifying textbook material with a percentage and requiring professors to follow rigid guidelines for selecting textbooks (D)
• Support restrictions on bundling (E)
• Support early publication of textbook selections (G)
• Support publishing details pertaining to textbook selections (G)
• Oppose limiting the use of revenues specifically to the use of lowering textbook costs; many of these revenues are used to offset costs across campus and contribute to financial aid for students (H)

I summarized stressing the importance of passing some sort of bill--taking baby steps. Textbooks are very expensive, and while legislators and administrators like to consider textbooks to be a mandatory cost of education, students often do not purchase textbooks. And if students do not have textbooks, they will likely struggle in their courses. The more expensive textbooks become, the more unlikely students will be to buy them.


Feel free to comment on these bills and others.

Until next time,
Josh

Student Government Meets Federal Government

This past Friday I had the unique opportunity to take a trip to Washington, D.C. with several members of EDUCAUSE, a higher education organization dedicated to the "intelligent use of information technology." Representing UMBC students and the UMBC Student Government Association along with SGA President Jay Lagorio, we presented a student perspective on a very significant issue: sharing of copyrighted materials on college and university campuses. More specifically, we were advocating against Section 494(a)(2) from H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007.

Steve from EDUCAUSE connected us with some people over at Digital Freedom and I got to write a guest blog for their site. Head over there and check it out, along with the rest of the information and news they have about protecting your Digital Rights.

An Afternoon in Annapolis

I missed Spanish class today as part of a delegation of UMBC students that went to a rally outside the joint legislation building in Annapolis. Along with students from a diverse sampling of Maryland's higher education institutions, we were there in support of the creation of a dedicated funding source for higher education.

There were eight UMBC students there, along with our president, Freeman Hrabowski and some members of his staff. I got to meet him for the first time which was pretty cool. I was worried eight people Josh was able to muster for this event would pale in comparison to the two buses of students College Park was bragging they were bringing, but as it turns out they barely filled one - ha! Josh also did a nice job dropping in the fact that we had a better voter turnout than they did in a conversation with their SGA President. Go UMBC!

Governor O'Malley and Dr. Hrabowski gave speeches along with a host of others, including some of the dignitaries that were at the governor's visit (a link to the story on my personal blog, as I realized I never put anything about that on this space). Anne got a bunch of excellent pictures so we might be seeing a few of those in the next Retriever Weekly. There are also some pictures available on the governor's website, but they can be a bit of a pain to browse as you have to go through an agreement to see the larger versions.

In between the rally and the start of the actual testimonies before the joint committee, various news crews were circulating to get material. Steve made out pretty well, scoring an interview for a College Park-based station as well as a radio spot on WBAL. Way to go Steve! There's also a picture of our group featured as part of an article in the Baltimore Sun. I know it's a lot of bragging but I'm really proud of UMBC for getting ourselves out there and trying to make a difference in our state.

All kinds of lobbyists were there to speak to the join committee so a lot of things had to be cut short to fit it all in, but I think Josh Michael did an excellent job in his testimony in the time that he had. He even got in a bit about how much students have to pay for textbooks, which makes me happy as that is an issue I had raised during the governor's visit. During the College Park SGA President's testimony the Chairman asked the students in the audience to stand, and all of us from UMBC were right smack in the middle with UMBC plastered over our shirts - once again, go UMBC!

There's something I find quite thrilling about taking a risk and putting yourself out there in the hopes of making a difference in something that is much bigger than yourself. A lot of people will tell you that you can't really change anything but it is deeper than that. It's not about one person lost in the middle of the world trying to do something all by him or herself. It's about connecting with others who share your vision, building bridges between yourself and others, and using the resources you do have at your disposal as best you can.