Adventures in Activism

Welcome back to UIS everyone.

Well, winter break is over. I use the term "break" loosely, since much of my time off was spent coordinating campaigns for the Illinois Student Association (which is a statewide coalition of students leaders that I started this year). It's been a bit on the stressful side, but now that we've got a few things accomplished I can say it was well worth it.

Last week was HUGE. Most of the week I spent planning a press conference here at UIS. We had it to release a report about H.R. 5, which is the bill in the House of Representatives that will cut some federal student loan interest rates in half over 5 years. The report described the benefits of the policy, and the Illinois Student Association (ILSA) was advocating that people support it. We held the press conference on Thursday, and it was well received. We were featured on the Channel 20 news at 6 pm, on NPR (WUIS), and in the SJ-R http://www.sj-r.com/sections/news/stories/105192.asp.

Friday I drove up to Chicago for a meeting at the Lt. Governor's office. I was meeting with Susanne Hack, the Legislative Counsel for the Lt. Gov. We discussed some upcoming legislation about textbooks. Senator Mattie Hunter was there, and Don Sevener from the IBHE phoned in. All in all, it was a great experience (except having to make the drive to Chicago!). ILSA is going to help build some support about the legislation, and we're hoping to have a rally day. Good times.

Monday was perhaps the coolest of all. I was invited to DePaul University to speak at a press conference about the student loan interest rate cuts. Whose press conference? None other than Senator Dick Durbin's! Very, very exciting. Senator Durbin is a co-author of the legislation and just introduced the Senate version of H.R. 5.

More good news come last Wednesday. The House overwhelmingly supported H.R. 5! One step closer to making loans more affordable.

Umm...other than that, I'd say I had a good Christmas and New Year's. I went home for Christmas and did family stuff, and visited a friend up at ISU for New Year's. I'm happy with how this winter break turned out.


Ok, on to this semester. I've only got one actual class, which is online. I also have an 8 credit hour internship at the State School News Service. It should be pretty good. Other than that, I'm catching up on some Student Government work, trying to get a GA position for grad school, thinking about the Navy Reserves, and trying to build up the Illinois Student Association (no worries, right?...).

Well, that's all I've got for now. I'll catch ya later.