As part of the annual Student Advocacy Day, sponsored by the Maryland Association of Community Colleges (MACC), 15 student representatives from the College of Southern Maryland met with their legislators Feb. 10 in Annapolis.
CSM’s students were joined by hundreds of their counterparts from Maryland’s 15 other community colleges in asking for support from members of the Maryland General Assembly to keep tuition affordable and to make it possible for more students to attend college by funding non-credit workforce development programs and instructional programs/health manpower shortage program grants.
Additional support was also being sought to increase community college capital funding by $1.4 million to allow funding for CSM’s new Health Sciences Building at the Regional Hughesville Campus and approve a summer study to examine offering bachelor of nursing degrees at community colleges.
The face-to-face setting provides the opportunity for students to personally advocate for full community college funding by sharing how an affordable college education will shape their own futures, according to MACC organizers.
During the day’s opening session, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. spoke with all representatives attending Student Advocacy Day, after which CSM students were able to meet with members of the Southern Maryland delegation to share the circumstances that drew them to the community college.
Meeting with the CSM students were Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, and State Delegates Mark N. Fisher, Sally Y. Jameson, Matt Morgan, Edith J. Patterson and Deborah C. Rey.
CSM students attending were Alicia Ahl, Chad Baker, Neal Balaoing, Yadira Coleman, Christina Combs, Nicholas Combs, Maria Estevez, Rebecca Forrester, Simon French, Kevin Jackson, Kyle Medlock, Katie Pasker, Krista Steele, Alesia Turner and Michaela Wallace.
Accompanying the students were CSM President Dr. Brad Gottfried, Vice Presidents Dr. Bill Comey and Dr. Tracy Harris, and Director of Strategic Partnerships Barbara Ives, as well as Student Life Coordinators Anya Patterson and Jennifer Van Cory, Student Services Executive Director Dr. Lydia Williams, Senior Media Relations Coordinator Dorothy Hill and Senior Photography Coordinator Val Nyce.
To view a gallery of photos from Student Advocacy Day, visit http://csmphoto.zenfolio.com/16sad. For information on CSM, visit www.csmd.edu. For information on the Maryland Association of Community Colleges, visit http://mdacc.org/.
