UC Student Association

The official voice of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at University of California campuses.

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Student Lobby Conference

About the Student Lobby Conference

The Student Lobby Conference (SLC) is an annual event that brings UC students to the State Capitol for the opportunity to develop lobbying skills, learn more about issues affecting students and California higher education, and directly engage elected officials on these issues.

SLC 2017 will be March 25-27 at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento and the California State Capitol Building.

For information on the 2016 Student Lobby Conference, contact us.

Lobby Visit Report Form

Please fill out this form ASAP to let us know how your visits went and how we can push forward on our legislative and budget asks in the future. If you have any questions, reach out to our Government Relations Director Talar Alexanian at govrelations@ucsa.org.

Advocate of the Year Awards 2018

At the Student Lobby Conference, we will recognize several Student Advocates of the Year and one Higher Education Champion for their work to promote student priorities through activism or advocacy during the 2017-18 academic year. Use the form below to nominate recipients for this honor.

Nominations are due March 12.

Criteria

Student Advocate of the Year
To receive this award, nominees must: 1) be a UC student nominated by another UC student; 2) have worked for institutional or policy change on campus, systemwide, locally, statewide, or federally; 3) have forwarded a tenet of UCSA’s mission or campaign platform; and 4) have demonstrated leadership capacity. It is not required that nominees have participated in a formal organization or student government. Five awardees with be selected from the nomination pool.

Higher Education Champion
This award is available to individuals, organizations, or legislators. To receive this award, nominees must: 1) be nominated by a UC student; 2) have demonstrated commitment to success for student priorities; and 3) have forwarded a tenet of UCSA’s mission or campaign platform. One awardee will be selected from the nomination pool.

Nomination Form

Policy Research Symposium 2017

This year at the Student Lobby Conference, UCSA is inviting graduate students to present their research to other UC students as a part of our second annual Graduate Policy Symposium, March 26. We encourage students to participate as this is a unique opportunity to present your work in a multidisciplinary forum. Presentations may take the form of 10-15 minute oral presentations, posters, or workshops. Topics may vary (research, policy, career development, education and more).

We are no longer accepting applications to participate in this event.

Delegation Leader Guide

This page is only for campus Delegation Leaders, not individual attendees. If you are a student who wants to attend, apply here.

What is SOS?

The Student Organizing Summit (SOS) is an annual conference focused on the intersection between organizing and student development. SOS is a unique opportunity for students to learn the tactics and strategies needed to engage in a winning campaign. Even better, at SOS students participate in a unique democratic process, where participants represent their campus to select the annual focus of UCSA’s campaigns. As UCSA represents the collective voice of 280,000 University of California students, the Student Organizing Summit is where we hear your voice! Due to the spread of COVID-19, this year’s Student Organizing Summit will be hosted online. Nonetheless, We look forward to seeing each of you! …Digitally.

Why attend the Student Organizing Summit?

SOS is a fun and engaging conference full of opportunities to learn from experts in issues that students are interested in. Although this years conference will be online there are a few ways we think you will still enjoy:

  • Great content from unique presenters
  • Participate in the selection of UCSA’s annual campaigns
  • (e)Meet UC students from all 9 campuses!
  • Learn how the UC work and about the structures of power in the UC

Conference Dates and Location

SOS 2020 will be hosted Saturday August 15 and Sunday August 16, 12-4PM, live via Zoom. Zoom links and passwords will be provided directly to participants after registration.

Registration Process

Delegation leaders should distribute the registration form that can be found at TinyUrl.com/UCSOS2020. The registration deadline is August 7, 2020 at 12PM. There is only one application for this conference; please do NOT make your own campus application. Applications will be distributed to EVPs to make the final selection for which students will attend the conference from your campus. This conference is free.

UCSA Board Attendee Prep Meeting – July 27, 2020 at 5pm

All members of the UCSA Board who are attending the conference are invited to attend a pre-conference prep meeting with UCSA staff. We hope this allows you to be leaders in the digital conference space and answer questions with students from your campus. At this meeting, you’ll have the opportunity to:

  • Review the agenda in advance
  • Sign up to help facilitate conference sessions
  • Get an overview of the campaign selection process, how to propose campaign goals, and how voting will work
  • Get advice about recruiting a diverse delegation

Please attend the prep meeting via Zoom:
July 27, 2020 at 5pm
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/670791533
Or by phone: 1-669-900-6833
Meeting ID: 670 791 533

Ready to invite Students? Here’s how to do it right.

We hope to have a truly representative conference this year and can only achieve this feat with your success. We value having many different identities and student experiences represented at this conference. Therefore, we are asking all delegation leaders to be highly intentional with your outreach to ensure proper communication.

To help you intentionally reach out to as many groups as possible, we have created a working document for you to track your outreach. Go to this link and find your campus tab. If you are unsure which community groups to reach out to, we’ve provided a list for you to use as a starting point.

There are two strategies we recommend to inviting students:

Broad Outreach: Conduct the normal conference outreach such as social media, email blast, etc

Targeted Outreach: Make a specific, targeted effort to connect with organizations of color and marginalized communities on campus. In doing this, here are some tips:

  • Connect with or work through community leaders that you or someone in your office may know
  • Be sure to offer how the community can benefit from participating in SOS (see above)
  • Request for an email or other update to be sent to the community. You may additionally request for promotional materials to be shared via their social media page.

Again, we ask that all delegations bring an actively diverse delegation. That means, working intentionally to ensure communities are invited.

Any Questions?

Feel free to contact lead conference planner and Statewide Organizing Director, Salih Muhammad at organizing@ucsa.org.