MORGANTOWN — WVU graduate students in a public advocacy course spent this semester traveling Interstate 79 between Morgantown and Charleston.
They were all talking to state lawmakers about legislation introduced during the ongoing session, which ends Saturday.
Half of those students advocated for legislation to increase access to medical marijuana and industrial and agricultural hemp.
The other half lobbied for the implementation of a state bank that would increase access to loans for small businesses and farmers, according to a presse release from WVU Today.
Lonnie Long was one of those graduate students. He compared his experience to the long-ago TV commercials between Saturday morning cartoons.
“A lot of times, students really only know the bare basics of what the policy process looks like, of how a bill becomes a law and all that reference to Schoolhouse Rock,” Long said in the press release. “But, (I was) able to work within it, with that process, and to understand how our state functions, understand the committee process and understand the actual actors and players involved with pushing something through, or blocking certain legislation.”
And whether or not the students — or the lawmakers — always agree, one student found that they all seem to have one thing in common.
“We can agree on what we’re doing as a source of opportunity for the state,” grad student Jack Swiney said in the release. “I think going back, that we all do care about our state and we do see these avenues as something that we do all agree on and that compromise is possible.
“In an ever-polarizing society, when it comes to government, it can sometimes be hard to agree on policy, but I think returning to some of the root issues that we do want to create change and we see a sense of humanity in what we’re doing and it’s what has allowed us to be successful.”
Another grad student involved in the project, Rae Manning, said she learned how valuable being part of the law-making process is and thinks more people should get involved.
Karen Kunz, WVU associate professor of public administration, agreed.
“If we can get young people, who are the future of the state, really engaged and conversational with their legislators, with their representatives, then there’s a much better chance of getting more positive movement done here and making West Virginia more competitive with the rest of the country,” Kunz said.
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