The Bakersfield College Student Government Association will be traveling to Washington, D.C., for the National Student Advocacy Conference March 18-22, marking the first time that a significant amount of the Student Representative Fee Fund will be used.
The Student Representation Fee was implemented for the first time at BC in the fall 2004 semester. The funds are accumulated by a $1 charge per student per semester during registration but can be waived by completing a Request for Refund form in Business Services or Admissions and Records.
Legislation for the Student Representative Fee was passed in 1987 and delegated power to student governments at the community college level to call for the fee if two-thirds of the student government voted in favor.
“[The fee] can only be spent to train our student leaders to become better advocates to the students and to more effectively represent the students in front of legislative bodies,” said Dean of Students Don Turney. Turney said that there are extremely tight guidelines as to how and when the money is spent.
Section 76060.5 of the California Educational Code states: “The money collected pursuant to this section shall be expended to provide for the support of governmental affairs representatives who may be stating their positions and viewpoints before city, county and district governments, and before offices and agencies of the state government.”
In other words the section states that the funds are to be used for student lobbying and training students to know how to lobby.
The section also says that the money brought in can only be used for purposes stated in the Sec. 76060.5.
The cost for seven student government members and their adviser will be in the neighborhood of $8,500, according to Turney, a lower figure than the $10,000 amount projected at the Feb. 17 SGA meeting. The money will cover airfare, hotel accommodations, food and the entry fee into the contest.
“We haven’t really ‘digged’ into the Student Rep Fee because it’s the first year it has been implemented,” said SGA Vice President Pryas Patel.
The conference is specifically designed for community college students. While at the conference, SGA members will learn leadership skills and will have the opportunity to interact with United States senators and representatives such as Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Rep. Howard McKeon (R-Calif.), as well as have the chance to hear speeches from key national figures such as U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader and possibly Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.).
Some of the topics covered at the conference will demonstrate and explain to SGA members how to successfully deal and improve issues such as student budgets, Pell Grants, Work Study programs and single parents tax credit matters as well as how to organize grassroots campaigns to help re-authorize the Higher Education Act.
“This trip is going to really encourage us to work with the government, and specifically, know what the government does [and] how to best handle, and best work with the government,” said Patel, who will be attending the conference. Patel also said that the students attending the conference would be required to take a final test. If the test is passed, then the students will receive accreditation as a student leader.
“It’s just something that you can put on your resume if you want,” Patel said referring to the student leader accreditation.
Some of the long-term advantages to the trip will be passing down the lessons learned to future administrations so that they can successfully serve the students. The short-term benefits to the trip that were outlined by Patel would include an immediate interaction with government officials, which, in turn, would establish a relationship with members of government at the national level, an accomplishment that Patel said would give the SGA “connections” for lobbying.
Although, a member passing the test at the conference would be accredited as being a student leader, that person would not be able to accredit other students. Patel said that he hopes that the event will become an annual occurrence so that future students have the opportunity to become endorsed student leaders.
The seven students attending the conference will not be stating viewpoints and positions to legislative bodies (lobbying) of government while in Washington, but they will be learning how to lobby more effectively and that falls within the parameters of using money from the Student Representation Fee Fund.
According to Turney, four of the seven students attending the trip will not be returning to BC next semester. However, the SGA made changes to the bylaws in a meeting on March 3 that will move student elections to the first week of April instead of the fall. Turney said that holding the elections at an earlier date will give the current student administration the ability to work with the newly elected administration before they leave office.