GSA Goes to Capitol Hill

Recently, from September 28th - October 2nd, GSA sent a delegation to the Advocacy Summit and Legislative Action Days organized by National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS). This event provides  graduate students an opportunity to learn about issues affecting higher education, training in advocacy, and firsthand experience of representing those viewpoints directly to congressional staffers on Capitol Hill. The CMU delegation consisted of: Divyansh Kaushik (Master’s in LTI), Dip Saha (PhD in MechE), Brad Sommer (PhD in History), Sree Sankaranarayanan (PhD in LTI), and myself (Master’s in Public Policy & Management).

Day 1 (Saturday, September 29th) The advocacy summit consisted of workshops on: the NAGPS Legislative Platform, Structure and Functioning of Congress, Science Policy, Higher Education Act Reauthorization Bill, and Immigration and Education. Highlights of the day included a speaker, Stephanie Giesecke from National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, who gave some tips on influencing the legislative budgeting process. Key dates to remember are:

• First monday in February: the President typically releases the budget

• February-March: Office of Management and Budget meets with Congress and federal agencies

• April 15: A budget resolution is due

The speaker highlighted that students can testify and that August-September is a good time to influence conversations about student aid.

The speaker on Science Policy was Tobin Smith from the Association of American Universities (AAU). He talked about the growing anti-Higher Education sentiment. He also talked about the history of science policy including explaining the context in which the decision on how to fund research in the US was taken. He emphasized the importance of using common language when talking to members of Congress especially since less than 3% of them have a background in science or engineering. Some interesting advice that he gave was : all politics are local, all politics are personal, the language you speak matters, and while maps are good, tour guides are better.  Further, he also shared some excellent resources to explore around this topic: Science Policy,  Engage in Science, and Alda Center for Communicating Science.

The day concluded with a talk from Steven Bloom from The American Council of Education providing  a recap of the advocacy by American Council of Education. He shared the advocacy efforts on issues surrounding travel ban, DACA, limits on immigration, and limits on social services for immigrants.

Day 2 (Sunday, September 30th) The second day of the advocacy summit consisted of more workshops on issues surrounding graduate education. These issues included: Open access and educational resources, Title IX, Legalities of Graduate Student Unionization, and presentations focusing on legislative activities.

The highlight of the day was a talk by Nick Shockey from SPARC, who spoke about  Open Access and Educational Resources. Earlier this year in March, a 5 million dollar grant was provided by Congress to pilot creation of open textbooks. A draft legislation on this is a bill called the College Textbook Act, and similar language was passed in a recent appropriations bill. SPARC has a state policy tracker comparing advances made by different states in this space. It shows that California has been a pioneer with open textbooks, while Pennsylvania has not done much  in this realm. Additionally, FASTR continues to remain the lead bill arguing for open access to federally funded research.

Day 3  (Monday, October 1)

On the first day of Capitol Hill Visits, GSA met with the offices of: Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA),  Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Representative Conor Lamb (D-PA18), Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT). CMU teamed up with University of Pennsylvania for the Bob Casey Meeting and Conor Lamb Meeting.

Day 4 (Tuesday, October 2)

On the second day of Capitol Hill visits, GSA met with the offices of: Senator Rob Portman (R-OH),  Representative Jim Renacci (R-OH16), Representative Mike Doyle (D-PA14), and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

• Lots of opportunities to highlight graduate student issues in Higher Ed Reauthorization Bill

• All congress members and staffers we met with were excited to get involved and even champion advocacy in some areas of policy we were discussing

• A lot of interest in Congress working on a letter to State Department for F1 Visa Domestic Revalidation

• A lot of people interested in being a champion around Collegiate Food Insecurity

If this trip seems exciting to you and you are interested in policy please consider joining the GSA external affairs committee by emailing Sarah Pesi, VP of External Affairs for more information. For more information of breakdown of what issues we discussed at the meetings continue reading below.

Meetings Breakdown