by J.C. Stoner, President-Elect

In my first semester of college (Fall 2001) there was a moment where I briefly considered adding an economics minor to my architecture major. Why? Because President Bartlet went to college for economics and maybe me, being someone not all that special in any particular way, might want to be President of the United States someday. But I didn’t add that minor. I was going to be a landscape architect. Then I was going to be a high school physics teacher. And now here I am. I like to think about the roads not taken. But sometimes those roads come back around.

On Friday, May 2^nd, the SWACUHO President inbox got an interesting email out of the blue. Coincidentally, the Executive Board was meeting at that time the email was received, so we discussed it.

The email was from the Chief of Staff¹ for Texas State Representative Lauren Ashley Simmons (District 146) explaining they were introducing a bill (HB 2476) “relating to a grant program for living expenses for certain students enrolled at public institutions of higher education.” Representative Simmons was requesting someone from SWACUHO come to the capitol to “testify on the importance of ensuring stable housing for students and the way that housing plays a critical role in student success.” From reading the bill, it appeared to be providing grant funds for unhoused and homeless students.

Well, this was certainly a new one…

The request to appear was for that coming Tuesday at 8:00am, less than 70 hours away.  We were on the clock. Executive Board discussed this request and given the current landscape of state government and higher education in Texas, there were rational and legitimate concerns about participating. Questions being shared and posed included:

•  Do we actually have to commit to supporting the bill? The request didn’t say that, but is it implied?
• What would it say about us if we did not participate in something aiming to help vulnerable students across Texas?
• Could we justifiably present testimony on something that may impact all Texas public member institutions without consultation?
• Are any of us even qualified to discern bill language to know what it actually means?
• Are there any “but’s” in the bill?
• Should we/can we provide a written statement instead?
• If we do choose to participate, can we logistically throw it all together in less than 70 hours (and less than 12 business hours)?
• Does SWACUHO even want to be on the state’s radar right now?
• Is there any potential fallout or ramifications for participating given the current landscape? 

Ultimately, I personally felt that this is something we were elected and appointed to do; and, if there was fallout or ramifications, isn’t that sometimes the cost of leadership?

But the clock was ticking. SWACUHO President Beth Eppinger and I swapped several messages over the weekend. I volunteered to write up a statement, send it to Executive Board first thing Monday morning, and say I was available to go (after clearing it with my Executive Director and Associate Vice President).

In preparing a statement, I realized the request didn’t even ask for our support. It didn’t even ask for commentary on the bill at all. They simply wanted us to talk about “ensuring stable housing for students and the way that housing plays a critical role in student success.” That’s an easy ask. We all do this every single day. I wrote up a two-page statement that could serve as a written or verbal statement. In hindsight, it read like a love affair with student housing talking about our front-line residence life staff and their programmatic efforts and our facilities staff who keep our buildings functioning, all of whom serve at 3:00pm and 3:00am and every hour in between. If a window of opportunity presents itself to talk about the unsung heroes in campus housing, you better believe I’m going to take it.

Midday Monday, Executive Board approved the statement and voted to send me to Austin. I booked a hotel across the street from the capitol, submitted my vacation time (since I would be off the clock as an Agent of the State every minute I was in Austin, TX), and took my commute home, grabbed some clothes, and was off to Austin.

I had 3.5 hours on the road where I kept thinking about how unqualified I was to be doing this. Let’s get a couple things out of the way. I am not media trained. I have had no interaction with legislative liaisons. And of course, I couldn’t stop thinking, “how in the world can a state bill administering grant money only be 2.5 pages long when I can’t even write a key audit procedure in less than four pages…

I also couldn’t stop thinking about my role with SWACUHO. No matter how well intentioned the bill was in delivering services to students in need, where does the money actually come from? I was reading this bill and it sounded like the money existed or is coming from the State Comptroller, but would it actually become an unfunded mandate for colleges and universities to cover the costs as things sometimes do? This would disproportionately impact our smaller schools…

Needless to say, I would take any advice I could get.

So while driving I called a couple longtime friends of mine. One serves as in city/county government in Minnesota and the other is a director of a state-wide agency in Texas who interacts with the state legislature on budgetary items. A few things I learned in those conversations:

1. When serving as a witness, you are either testifying “FOR the bill,” “AGAINST the bill”, or “ON the bill”. Providing a neutral stance is testifying ON the bill.
2. Practice, practice, practice.
3. Don’t undermine yourself by saying things like “I am not an expert” or other such diminishing comments.
4. Don’t say “that’s a good question,” because every question a legislator asks is, of course, a good question.
5. It’s okay to say “I don’t know the answer to that” or “I don’t have that information on hand” provided you make sure to immediately follow with “I will gather that and get back to you.” Then actually get back to them.

In retrospect, there are some pretty practical professional development lessons within those items. Everything we learn is scalable, I suppose.

I got to my hotel at 10:30pm. I opened up my inbox to find I had received an email while driving from the Chief of Staff about logistics for the next morning. She said I would have two minutes to speak.

So I guess I would be spending my evening “trimming” my two-page statement… with an axe. So I did. But I didn’t have a printer and the hotel printer wasn’t working, so I scrawled it out on a pad of paper. I watched Schoolhouse Rocks’ “How a Bill Becomes a Law” and went to bed.

I got up early Tuesday morning, finished editing my dramatically truncated statement, practiced it several times, put on my big kid clothes, took a deep breath, and walked to the Capitol building. Experientially, this might be a defining moment. And when a defining moment comes along, you define the moment or the moment defines you.

It was an overcast and dreary day. But it was a good day to be a part of the process.

My experience at the capitol will be shared in Part Two.

¹In her email, Chief of Staff Mo Jenkins identified herself as a former RA at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and explained how she “[knew] firsthand how impactful housing can be to a student’s academic journey” and how she believed testimony from SWACUHO “would go a long way to driving that point home.”