Victories
In recent years, ASA has increased our focus on grassroots organizing. We believe that the best way for us to achieve victories for students to put a face to the issues and empower students to advocate for themselves.
Our focus on grassroots organizing and developing leaders has helped ASA to obtain some of our biggest accomplishments. Almost all of our victories are linked to a campaign that was ran on campuses and brought students’ voices to the Arizona Board of Regents or the State Capitol.
Voting Student Regent
While students are common on boards of regents or trustees at universities across the nation, Arizona is one of very few states to grant its student regent a vote. ASA first proposed the idea of a student regent in the mid-1970s. In 1978, the position was created by an act of the Arizona Legislature, on the conditions that the Legislature had to re-authorize the position regularly and that the Student Regent had no vote on the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR). In 1987, ASA convinced the Legislature and then-Governor Evan Mecham to give the Student Regent a permanent position on ABOR. In 1989, ASA successfully lobbied the Legislature and then-Governor Rose Mofford to give the Student Regent full voting powers on the Board of Regents. In the late 1990s, ASA was again successful in expanding the power and influence of the Student Regent position by creating a seat for a second Student Regent. Student Regents now have two-year terms; they spend their first year learning about the position in a non-voting capacity, and become the voting Student Regent in the second year of their term.
Arizona Financial Aid Trust Fund (AFAT)
In the mid-1980s, ASA recognized the need for a state-based financial aid program; at the time, only federally subsidized programs existed for students in Arizona. In 1989 ASA proposed and won passage of the Arizona Financial Aid Trust, or AFAT. It provides aid to students who demonstrate a clear need for financial aid. Students approved a surcharge (equal to 1% of resident undergraduate tuition) through student referenda on Arizona’s university campuses to provide initial funding for the program and the state was to provide matching funds. In 2006 ASA was successful in increasing the statutory obligation of the state to match the students’ contributions to AFAT by a ratio of two-to-one.
Textbooks
As part of the “Make Textbooks Affordable” campaign, ASA was able to urge the Regents to examine the increasing cost of textbooks in Arizona. In June 2007 ABOR created a textbooks task force to address the problem and passed a set of policy requirements designed to help keep textbook costs down at the universities. ASA passed legislation in 2008 that required textbook publishers to disclose their prices to professors, which our research indicated was one of the best ways to help make textbooks more affordable for students.
Voter Registration, Education & Mobilization
ASA began a statewide student voting program in 1988, as a means of establishing an active, educated voting bloc of university students. Every election year ASA 1) registers students to vote; 2) brings candidates and speakers to campus to inform students about the election’s candidates and issues; and 3) works to achieve high student voter turnout on Election Day. For the 2008 Elections, ASA formed the Arizona Student Vote Coalition with student governments across the state and the Arizona Public Interest Research Group. The Coalition registered nearly 10,000 students across the state to vote before the 2008 elections, even though recent laws made it much more difficult for students to register to vote in Arizona. In addition ASA contacted over 40,000 students to remind them to turn out to vote on Election Day.