The Arizona Students’ Association is an organization directed and funded by Arizona’s public university students. We represent the 130,000 university students across ASU, U of A and NAU. ASA works to make sure that higher education in Arizona is affordable and accessible by advocating to elected officials and running grass root issue campaigns and increasing civic engagement. Recent issues ASA has worked on include fighting tuition increases, increasing state-based financial aid, and passing legislation to reduce the cost of textbooks. The ASA Board of Directors is comprised of student leaders from Arizona’s public universities: Arizona State University’s Downtown, Polytechnic, Tempe, and West; Northern Arizona University and its NAU Yuma campus; and the University of Arizona and its UA South campus. All Student Body Presidents sit on the ASA Board and all other Board Members are either appointed by a Student Body President or have a seat as a member of their campus’ Graduate and Professional Student Council or Association. The two Student Regents from the Arizona Board of Regents sit on the ASA Board of Directors as ex-officio members.
Current Update
“Last week ASA had a Blitz week for voter registration and hosted a table every day for Voter Registration. ASA is very proud of its hard working interns for pushing forward through this entire voter registration season. ASA is clip boarding around ASU campus for the remaining two days before the Voter Registration deadline. In addition we will begin to push social media on Proposition 204 on Wednesday by posting pictures of interns in their “Vote 4 Education” shirts. On Friday we will be leaving for the Conference of Arizona Student Leaders. If any student leaders still have an interest in attending that conference then they may sign up here: http://azstudents.org/news/casl-2012/ . If any student leader wishes to go and receive a scholarship to attend, they may email the ASA Director Megan Riley(mnriley@asu.edu) for more information.”
-Megan Riley, ASA Director
Week of October 1st, 2012
“Last week ASA held a Voter Registration Kickoff on Tuesday and got a lot of volunteer support. ASA was represented by board members from ASU Tempe at an ASA Board meeting. ASA board members remained in Flagstaff to watch the ABOR proceedings and represent students in that forum. This week ASA is hosting their blitz week of voter registration! Each day ASA will be out on the north side of the MU registering voters with a different theme each day. Monday’s theme is “Vote Naked”, where students are encouraged to register with a permanent early voting list that sends a ballot to their mailbox so they may vote at home in any shape or time they like. Tuesday’s theme is “Democracy is not a Spectator Sport!” with sports equipment for display encouraging students to get active in their democracy. Wednesday’s event is themed “Exercise your right to vote”, we will have the MU North Stage and be exercising and getting students pumped by working out our right to vote. Thursday’s event is themed “Peace, Love, and Vote” and we will be celebrating the circumstances leading to the 26th Amendment which gave 18-21 year olds the right to vote. Friday, we will be out with the theme “You Otter Vote” and be giving out otter pops, dressing up similar to the otter pop characters to encourage students to vote. Finally we will be out on the town on Saturday afternoon talking to citizens on Mill Avenue about Proposition 204. We have a large and exciting week. If anyone is interested in volunteering and getting involved, they may email the ASA Director, Megan Riley, at mnriley@asu.edu”
Week of September 24th, 2012
“This week ASA has tabling scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Tuesday we will be out on Hayden lawn with several tables getting students registered to vote. Wednesday we are collaborating with Students for Liberty and hosting a Voter Registration table outside their event. Tuesday night, September 25th, in celebration of the National Day of Voter Registration we will host a kick off of our Vote Coalition and of our last week of voter registration. If anyone is interested they can come to Room 207(Gold Room) at 6:30pm on September 25th to get involved!”
Week of September 17th, 2012
“This last week ASA was working hard tabling for Voter Registration. All of our interns have gone through their first few classes and getting trained on Class presentations. This week we will be once again tabling outside the MU for Voter Registration. We will also be attending RHA’s Hall Council meetings this week as well as beginning our meetings with clubs in order to form our Vote Coalition. This is the LAST week to fill out our Issue Survey( http://tinyurl.com/ASAIssueSurvey) and we are turning all surveys in on the 21st. We are also recruiting for our Fall semester, If any student is interested in getting their organization involved in our coalition, please contact Megan Riley at mnriley@asu.edu.”
Week of September 10th, 2012
Last week ASA finished our recruitment and now have 29 interns ready to start working on Voter Registration and other campaigns. We have followed up with and completed an additional 271 voter registration forms in the past few weeks. This week we are tabling for Voter Registration and Prop 204 from Monday through Thursday. We are beginning outreach on our issue choosing survey (www.tinyurl.com/2012IssueSurvey) as well as starting to push Voter Registration through tabling and other voter registration outreach.
Week of September 3rd, 2012
Last week ASA hosted our recruitment kickoff on Thursday, and had about 25 students attending. This week we are finishing recruitment and hoping to get over 30 interns. ASA`s issue choosing survey is out, so we will start to begin outreach to students to ensure a diverse voice is heard when deciding the issues that ASA will be advocating for this year. Finally ASA is working on meeting with regents to discuss keeping the call to the audience on the agenda, thereby keeping in place the system that allows for students to bring their issues and grievances to the board of regents in a public forum.