By Rebecca Hallengren
State Press
The Arizona Students' Association decided Friday to help Arizona university students who want to hold rallies during Arizona Board of Regents meetings for the rest of the school year.
ASA will focus the rallies on issues such as keeping tuition low and getting better academic advising on all state campuses.
"I think that having rallies will help us in our effort to be more activist in our approach to sway the Regents," said ASASU President Jenny Holsman. "We just want to get the word out that these issues are important to all students around the state."
ASA is scheduled to decide Oct. 8 which issues are the most important to each campus. Members will decide by speaking to student government officers from each school.
The association will also demonstrate to the Regents that students are concerned with the decisions they are making, ASA Executive Director Sam Leyvas said.
Rhoda Pflum, a political science senior, said there are not enough students at ASU who are willing to attend rallies to make a difference.
"I think that the rallies would be more effective if more people were involved," she said.
ASU President Lattie Coor said the Regents were listening to the students outside the Memorial Union Thursday who rallied against tuition increases at the state universities.
"They (students) certainly handled themselves in an appropriate way at this Regents meeting, and I believe their message was heard," he said.
Although tuition is a major concern at all Arizona universities there are also other issues -- such as child care -- that ASA wants to work on, said Essam El-Dardiry, a member of the ASA board of directors and an ASASU senator for the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Chris Herstam, the assistant secretary of ABOR, said that it is a person's prerogative if they want to rally.
"I have no objections to (students) rallying," he said.
Reporter Rebecca Hallengren can be reached by phone at (480)965-2292or by e-mail at rhallengren@hotmail.com.
