Several Longwood University students traveled to the Virginia General Assembly Building in Richmond last Tuesday, Feb. 12, for Longwood Lobby Day, allowing them the opportunity to discuss their higher education experiences and concerns with legislators and to learn more about the General Assembly.
Longwood Lobby Day came to fruition from the joint efforts of Brenda Atkins, executive assistant to the president for Governmental Affairs and Special Projects, and Avrielle Suleiman, president of Virginia 21, a nonpartisan advocacy organization for higher education.
The group consisted of seven students, including Suleiman, Virginia 21 Vice President Kramer Anderson, Virginia 21 members Vanessa Lieurance, Dustin Meadows and Jamie Clift, as well as students Emily Wilkins and Hunter Costley.
“Everything the General Assembly does affects all of us, whether we’re students or just citizens of the Commonwealth,” said Atkins. “So everybody needs to be involved or interested.”
“I’m hoping that at least getting the students a little bit of a taste of it ... will trigger an interest in them to continue to be involved, to continue following what’s going on in Richmond,” added Atkins.
Atkins said she helps organize the General Assembly trip each year to help legislators “learn more about the university, but also to provide students an opportunity to see a little bit of what goes on in Richmond during the General Assembly session.”
Several other Virginia universities host lobby days as well, including James Madison University, the College of William & Mary and Radford University.
The Longwood students in attendance were able to sit in on a committee meeting and experience the introduction of a bill and see how the overall process works, as well as be introduced on the Senate and House of Representatives floor and take a tour of Richmond City Hall.
Atkins also set up meetings between the students and their local legislators to discuss their experience at Longwood and thank them for their support of higher education.
Suleiman said Senator George Barker’s honesty was particularly refreshing. “He was like, ‘I know we’re not doing a lot for higher education this year, and I’m sorry about that, but we are working toward it,’” she said. “That’s what I think Longwood Lobby Day wants to hear.”
“If you put effort in, you can change things,” Suleimanadded.
Anderson said the significance of the Lobby Day and continuing to lobby is “telling our senators and our delegates that we have concerns and we have interests. They’re starting to take the youth vote significantly more seriously, and everyone’s trying to court the youth vote infinitely more than they were previously.”
Many people try to look at issues at a national level, Anderson said, which can be overwhelming.
“There’s so many contentious things even at the state level,” Anderson added. “There’s so much we can do even at the state level that’s very influential.”
Longwood’s Virginia 21 chapter also attended Virginia 21’s statewide lobby day in late January, where they discussed this year’s Virginia 21 focus of keeping the quality of higher education high with legislators.
“They change their issues every year with what is going on in the state,” said Suleiman. “They’re not stagnant.”
There was a reception the night before Virginia 21’s lobby day that Suleiman said helped students relax before talking to legislators and legislative aids the next day.
Anderson said it was important that the legislators attending the lobby day “understand that we know they have other things to do. We understand that we aren’t the only lobby out there.”
When talking to legislators, Suleiman said, they decided as a group it would be best to say something along the lines of, “We understand that you can’t give us all the money in the world, and we understand that tuition has to be increased sometimes, but we want to keep the quality of education up.”
Ultimately, Suleiman believes that both lobby days made a difference.
“Whenever I go [to the Virginia General Assembly], I feel like I’ve had a great day because I feel like I’ve done something that can, not only change my life, but maybe the lives of other people at my school and other schools,” said Suleiman.
