OU students met with Oklahoma legislators at the state Capitol to advocate for higher education on Tuesday during Higher Education Day.
Higher Education Day is an annual event held at the Capitol, where University of Oklahoma students meet one-on-one with legislators. The event allows students to lobby for causes important to them, such as higher education; diversity, equity and inclusion; and various other university initiatives.
Higher Education Day was originally scheduled for February but was postponed due to expected inclement weather.
Marilou Bento, external affairs committee chair of the Undergraduate Student Congress, said Higher Education Day is an opportunity for students to have open and honest conversations with lawmakers.
“It's important to make our legislators see the human side of higher education … being able to talk about our plans and what we want to do with our futures within Oklahoma is very helpful to the legislators,” Bento said.
Mercer Martin, Oklahoma Votes public relations chair, said Higher Education Day is important because it facilitates face-to-face connections between constituents and their representatives.
“It's really important to form these connections, to let our voices be heard to the people who represent us,” Martin said. “It was also just really enlightening to get to hear from the legislative side on how this process even works and what we can do to help them. They can't know about our concerns unless we go talk to them.”
Martin said the event is about amplifying student voices and making students heard on a state level.
Martin said she was heartened to see the diversity of OU students who attended Higher Education Day.
“The external affairs committee did such a great job at making sure that all groups … all different aspects of OU being represented at the Capitol,” Martin said.
This year, roughly 30 OU students from various organizations including the Student Government Association, Oklahoma Votes, OU Black Royalty and the OU Food Pantry attended Higher Education Day, according to Bento.
Bento said she worked hard this year with her committee to make sure students were prepared and researched the representatives they were meeting with so they could best communicate the issues and topics that were important to them.
“Everyone came out a lot more satisfied with the conversations that they had because legislators were just a lot more receptive to you knowing things about them,” Bento said.
Bento said she was very proud of how the day turned out, and felt that students and lawmakers had productive and understanding conversations.
“All the students in all the meetings that I attended, all the students I saw, were asking very insightful, thoughtful questions,” Bento said.
Martin said one of her favorite moments of the day was sitting down with Sen. Mary Boren (D-Norman) and having a conversation about how lawmakers could better connect with students.
“We just shared a very honest and down to earth conversation about how young people can get involved with legislators, with the government, how she thinks it's so important for our voices to be heard as we're the next generation,” Martin said.
Martin said civic engagement is important in college because young adults currently have one of the lowest voter turnouts.
According to a report from the University of Florida, Oklahoma’s turnout rate for the Nov. 5 election was 53%, the lowest in the nation. The state’s 2024 turnout of registered voters was also lower than the past two presidential elections with many experts attributing the low turnout to disillusionment among young voters who feel disconnected from lawmakers.
“There's a lot of barriers, disillusionment with the whole system, people feel like it's not accessible,” Martin said. “We try to aim to break down these barriers so that we can reach them at the easiest level right here to set them up for their whole lives of being civically engaged.”
Keaton Shaffer contributed to the reporting of this story. This story was edited by Ana Barboza and Ismael Lele. Allie Clift and Sophie Hemker copy edited this story.
