Protest on the Arizona State Capitol

When the Arizona State Legislature proposed a 40% cut to the Public Higher Education system, students, community members, parents, faculty, and even some legislators alike took a stand for public higher education in Arizona...

I was a key coordinator and organizer for an Anti-Budget Cuts campaign that ASA ran in the spring of 2009.  Facing a legislature that wanted to cut the budget of public higher education by forty percent (40%), the Arizona Students’ Association (ASA) took drastic action (which we felt was fitting to the drastic cuts proposed) and organized a massive legislative and organizing campaign against the cuts.  With my strategizing and tireless efforts, ASA was able to organize over 3,000 people to our state capitol to protest the budget cuts; the largest protest at the Arizona capitol in decades.  However, from my past experiences I knew that turning people out to the capital is not the only thing needed to make legislative change.  In addition to multiple state-wide protests, including that capital march, I was one of the three members on the campaign who power mapped the legislature, creating a rubric and point system for how to reach each member of the Arizona House and Senate and get them to support education.  Our efforts brought a huge victory for students and while the legislature still cut our budgets, it was less than twenty percent (20%) and our campaign elevated the level of student power in a state that is not known for being student or education friendly.