ASPSU digs for student stories

A significant part of ASPSU’s plans for this year is increasing student advocacy opportunities in Salem and to increase student visibility at the state capital during the 2008-09 legislative session.

As part of this movement, State Affairs Director Zach Martinson has been conducting a new advocacy campaign with the help of Federal Affairs Director Collin LaVallee. Called “story mining,” the campaign centers around 3-by-5 cards with a selection of check marks on one side and a comment form on the other.

Students are asked to fill out the cards to “tell their stories” to elected legislators. Check boxes on the cards include such options as “I am a student with a disability” and “I receive need-based aid,” along with “I will graduate with debt” and “I am a student parent.”

On the reverse side, a comment form encourages the student to write a personal message to their representative about what is needed to make college more affordable and accessible to students.

“The purpose of story mining is to bring in students who might not have the time or the resources to get to the capital,” said Martinson. “We take their stories to the capital for them, and often we’ll take the students with us, too.”

This is where the legislative part of the fieldwork comes into play. Martinson plans to take those cards—and hopefully a few of the students that wrote them—to Salem on many of his lobbying sessions.

“We’re going to the capital every week,” he said. “It’s really cool to bring students down there—a lot of times they don’t even know that they have the ability to go there.”

So far ASPSU has collected about 100 cards. It’s far short of Martinson’s goal of 800, but as he puts it, “It’s early yet.” Martinson plans to continue the campaign, the collecting and the trips to Salem until at least March.

In order to get the word out about his story mining and to collect as many cards as possible, Martinson and his band of volunteers plan to try to reach students via several different avenues. By far the most visible of those efforts will be canvassers—the volunteers with clipboards prevalent around the Park Blocks.
 
Martinson also plans to have his volunteers attend student group functions, rallies and any events they can.

“Any student group function that we get permission to show up to, we’ll be there,” said Martinson.

He said that one of his goals this year is to work more closely with various student groups, and that student body Vice President Kyle Cady is meeting with student group leaders to make that happen.

Several weeks ago, ASPSU received a donation of over 500 movies on VHS tape from the Millar Library. There was a vague plan in place to distribute the movies as incentives for students to fill out a story card, but ASPSU staff soon realized the flaw in the plan.

“Nobody wanted them,” Martinson said.

Left with stacks of videos overrunning ASPSU’s office, the staff found a recipient: Fifth Avenue Cinema.
As far as the story cards, Martinson expressed a desire to hear from more student parents.

“I know that here at PSU it takes three years to get a spot in the childcare program, which means you could be a senior before you get help with daycare. That’s just wrong.”

He said he sees a common thread running through most of the cards received so far.

“Students need more money,” he said. “The big underlying message from students is that they’re suffering. It’s not easy to go to college in this economy.”