WMU Students Lobby in Lansing

Dr. Denise Keele, Western Michigan University assistant professor of political science and environmental and sustainability studies, wanted students to truly experience American environmental policy and not simply study it. Collaborating with the Michigan Environmental Council, a coalition of more than 70 organizations created to lead Michigan's environmental movement, Keele organized Michigan Environmental Policy Lobby Day.

Representatives from the Michigan Environmental Council gave several presentations in five different courses, including Keele's spring 2014 environmental policy course, and during a public event detailing issues that they deemed appropriate for the students to lobby. As an additional lesson—voting counting—all students who attended the presentations, including the open session, selected their top three issues and all votes were tallied. By far, the Line 5 Pipeline issue received the most votes and the students instantly had a real environmental issue on which to focus their attention.

Line 5 is a pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy Company, a Canadian based company that is responsible for 800 incidents that exceed 6.8 million gallons of oil spilled in the United States and Canada. Stretching over 640 miles, Line 5 carries up to 20 million gallons of crude oil everyday and has not been replaced in more than 60 years. Underwater footage of Line 5 shows some original supports have broken, indicating extensive corrosion. An oil spill from Line 5 would reach the shores of Mackinac City and Mackinac within three hours and it's projected that within 17 hours, impact would reach the Kalamazoo River in Marshall, Mich.

Preparing for Lobby Day was filled with just as many lessons, if not more, than the actual day in Lansing. Students were assigned to be a part of the logistics, legislator research or issue research group. The logistics group determined which legislators would receive a visit, calling legislative offices to schedule student appointments and preparing the schedule for the day in Lansing. Legislator researchers identified relevant legislators to Line 5 and prepared background profiles on legislators that would receive a visit on Lobby Day, including positions on legislative issues, committees they serve and campaign financing. Issue researchers investigated Line 5 and talking points for each student and legislator meeting.

Thirty six students, Keele and participating faculty members Dr. Laura Hastings, assistant professor of political science, Dr. Lynne Heasley, associate professor of environmental and sustainability studies and history and Dr. Sarah Hill, associate professor of anthropology and environmental and sustainability studies took the trip from Kalamazoo to Lansing. Students spent the day at the State Capital meeting with state legislators to educate and lobby on behalf of the Line 5 pipeline. The goal of adding this experiential quality to learning is to teach students to work on a continuum. Keele's intent is for students to see that while they "can't change everything at once, they can move small things forward." The job of the students was to get legislators to talk about Line 5. At this point, a petition has been started and Keele is confident that the state will pursue regulation as a result of the presence of the WMU students, but it continues to be an ongoing issue.

Student reflections

While participating in Lobby Day was optional, 36 students chose to make the trip to Lansing and one of the most rewarding aspects of this experience is seeing the student reaction. "It's fun to see which students will respond and how they respond to the chaos and mayhem in politics," says Keele. "Students have a visceral reaction to the political scene. They love it or hate it and they learn something about themselves."

David Hemmerlein, a biology and environmental and sustainability student from Kalamazoo calls lobby day "one of the great experiences" of his collegiate career. He notes that despite having conflicting views on certain issues, he was able to connect and come to an understanding while speaking with state representatives.

Lobbying an issue "was the most exciting, life-changing experience" that geography student Marianne Twork of Holton, Michigan has had at WMU. She states that the "excitement of swaying a legislator of a non-environmentalist party to push the issue forward was one of the most satisfying feelings I've ever felt in my life." Twork learned "how to affect change in the state government" as well as learned a lot about herself.

This hands-on experience from start-to-finish was "one of the most memorable" experiences for communication student Angela Wehner of Gaylord, Michigan. In preparation for lobby day, Wehner met with Greg MacMaster, state Representative of the 105th district, which includes her hometown and Representative Patrick Somerville. Wehner credits the feedback she received from MacMaster and Somerville as helping her prepare for lobby day.

The benefits of the environmental policy class extended beyond the College of Arts and Sciences. Niklas Carey, a social studies, secondary education student, states that participating in lobby day "changed the way I view government and my role in government." He also encouraged other departments to have more projects much like this one available.

Future of Lobby Day

This is the second time that Lobby Day has been offered to WMU students. It was first offered during the spring of 2013. While Keele is definitely looking forward to offering Lobby Day again, she is going to make it available on an every other year rotation, making the next Lobby Day in 2016. This gives the newly elected legislators time to become acclimated and works better on the election cycle. Professors interested in collaborating with Keele to become a part of Lobby Day are encouraged and she states, "we should do more" and it could work well with students interested in sociology, history, and any other department interested in how people work and how government works.

Michigan Environmental Policy Day is sponsored by the WMU Environmental and Sustainability Studies program Gwen Frostic Workshop Series in partnership with the Michigan Environmental Council. All photos were taken by Lynne Heasley.