OU students met with more than 50 legislators Tuesday at the Capitol for a statewide event to promote higher education funding.

Students and state officials worked together on Higher Education Day, an annual event in which Oklahoma universities send delegates to the Capitol to meet with representatives and show how their votes personally affect students and faculty at public institutions.

UOSA organized OU’s delegation, which included nearly 50 students who took a bus to the Capitol Tuesday morning.

Event coordinator Rachel Tyrrell, economics and accounting junior, said OU officials told her this year’s Higher Education Day was met with positive feedback at the Capitol.

Tyrrell said students worked hard to get their message across and in the end they passed information to every legislator.

Besides speaking with the 52 legislators who had scheduled meetings a month in advance, students also dropped off higher education information packets at the offices of the remaining 97 members of the Legislature, she said.

“You would think that all legislators would be really on board with higher education, but they actually think we receive too much funding and think that programs need to be cut,” Tyrrell said. “They want to know that the funding is making an impact, so if students are able to tell stories [about successful programs] … I think that was the most important thing to keep in mind for students.”

UOSA held mandatory training sessions on how to lobby effectively by telling personal stories and statistics relating to funding cuts in order to help its delegates prepare for Tuesday, student delegate Tufi Bell said in an e-mail.

Bell, a chemistry sophomore who works in UOSA’s departments of Interior-Student Relations and Sustainability, said the sessions helped her prepare for speaking with legislators.