The annual spectacle of students and faculty descending on the Statehouse to advocate for more funding, known as Carolina Day, has subsided.
We feel that Carolina Day has limited potential for effecting real change. While it's great to have our students and administration interacting with legislators, we need for those interactions to have an impact. Rather than an event with the feel of bring-your-kid-to-work day, we need to get tough with a legislature that has denied our school of much-needed money.
Let's start writing letters, holding protests and calling out legislators for shameful statistics. South Carolina's spending on higher education funding is down by more than 40 percent from five years ago. Despite the well-intentioned and dedicated efforts of many people on many Carolina Days, the legislature has clearly headed in the opposite direction.
Although we wish a positive, constructive dialogue could be achieved on higher education funding, catching more flies with honey than vinegar has not worked for us so far. Even backing off a tuition freeze request may not necessarily lead to more funding. It’s time to hold politicians' feet to the fire and demand that they appropriately fund our university.
Also, pouring the efforts of the student body into one day of the year leaves our message lacking the other 364. It's like Christmas Eve, but Santa never comes.
There are student organizations that lobby the Statehouse on our behalf, but if we want the legislature to reverse the trends of decreased state funding and increased tuition we need broader and more aggressive campaigning.
Carolina Day is epitomized by politicians like Nikki Haley offering placating platitudes on their commitment to education. Without a more sustained campaign of protest, lobbying and action, the Statehouse will continue to fail their government's flagship university.
We applaud the goal of Carolina Day, but why limit ourselves to one day if it hasn't worked that way in the past?