What is CoPIRG Student Chapters?
CoPIRG
is a statewide, student-directed organization that works to solve problems
facing our society. Our environment and public health are threatened, students
are being ripped off, poverty is on the rise, and our decision makers aren’t
listening to ordinary citizens. COPIRG combines the idealism of students with
the expertise of professional staff who conduct research, education, and
grassroots organizing for the public.
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What does COPIRG do?
We get results. Last semester,
COPIRG’s New Voters Project registered 2,562 students to vote and increased
voter turnout by an overall 239% from 2002 turnout numbers, with a 449%
increase in one on-campus precinct! This
winter CoPIRG’s Campus Climate Challenge helped convince CU Chancellor Bud
Peterson to sign onto the American
College and University
President's Climate Commitment by gathering over 700 student signatures in
support of climate neutrality. The
Challenge group also worked with the Environmental
Center to sign up
students for wind power and engaged 100s of students to ask Governor Bill
Ritter be a leader on cutting global warming pollution. The group also
received an honor from MTV's "Break the Addiction" challenge for our
work on campus to combat global warming.
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How
is COPIRG funded?
Students
at CU voted to fund COPIRG through a $.99 per student per semester fee in 2003.
Now CoPIRG has an annual budget allocated from the student government on
campus, and the results of the CoPIRG referenda question will help determine
the longevity of CoPIRG at CU. Students
at CU have been a part of COPIRG for nearly 4 years, pooling together their
resources statewide with other COPIRG chapters to hire staff, such as
researchers and grassroots organizers, to work with them on issues that they
care about. Students decide how best to spend their resources on the issues
that they care about, such as fighting homelessness, cleaning our water ways,
and working for more clean energy.
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Why
go to the ballot?
We are
choosing to run our advisory referenda question here at CU as a way to reaffirm
student support for the work that we do. The mandate from the student community
that says that CU students want clean air, clean water, affordable tuition, and
an end to poverty gives us the ammunition it takes to get our work done. By
having students vote to fund COPIRG with a per student fee, we show the student
government that students want to pool their resources to make sure we can keep
doing our work in the future.
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What are the priorities
for the next few years?
To
protect and enforce the consumer and environmental laws we already have in
order to clean our water and protect our forests. President Bush has lined
himself up as one of the most anti-environmental presidents ever. It seems as
if there is a new environmental rollback everyday - everything from clean air,
to endangered species, to pristine wilderness is in trouble. COPIRG will save
these laws, and keep pushing for environmental policies that will actually
start cleaning up our waterways, reducing air pollution, and fixing our current
energy problems. And then there are all of the cuts that he and Congress have made
to federal higher education programs, and programs that help the poorest people
in our country - things like food stamps and Medicaid. But
we're not just playing defense. We're working on new ways to make higher
education affordable through new grants and lower interest rates. We're
fighting to lower the cost of textbooks. We're looking to ban some of the most
dangerous toxins from entering our waterways. We're working to get college
campuses to start leading the way in terms of addressing global warming and
being leaders in clean energy. And we're working to alleviate hunger and
homelessness in our community.
And
in the fall, we will be working to increase student voter participation through
voter registration and get out the vote efforts all across the state!
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How does COPIRG spend the
funding it receives?
We use
it all to tackle Colorado’s
biggest problems and win positive reform for the state. When you look at the
things we've done - protect 58.5 million acres of forests, ban the most
dangerous pesticides from daycares and schools, clean up the air all across the
country - it's pretty clear that it's money well spent. The staff we hire and
the campaigns we run do take resources, and with the challenges facing Colorado
and the rest of the country over the next few years, you can be sure that our
staff and students will use these resources to stand up to the special
interests and win. Our clean water, our land use protections, consumer and student
rights - they all rely on our ability to hire a crack team of experts and
professionals to fight for students. Besides,
polluting industries spend millions of dollars each year just on campaign
contributions to elected officials (that doesn't include their lobbyists, their
propaganda, their campaign ads, etc.), a $.99 fee every term is small change in
comparison to what we're up against. That small change makes a big difference -
they might spend tens of millions of dollars trying to avoid pollution regulations,
but with the help of students here at CU, we are able to protect our
environment and public health. Student support gives us the opportunity to make
a difference at the local, state and even national level.
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Where
is the money spent?
On and
off campus, but mostly it goes to wherever COPIRG's resources will make a
difference on the issues that students care about. The whole point of
establishing COPIRG is to be able to have the resources to hire a staff of
professionals - attorneys, researchers, organizers, and advocates - to work
with students to fight against the special interests wherever they are trying
to pollute the environment, rip-off consumers, or corrupt the democratic process.
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Why
does COPIRG hire staff?
The
problems that COPIRG undertakes are large, statewide, and often national in
scope. Staff is an important part of having an effective statewide
organization. They bring expertise to student's ideas and continuity to
long-term student campaigns. Back To Top
Do students in each
chapter decide what issues to work on?
Students
decide on the campaigns that they want to work on both locally and at the
statewide level. Students can bring campaign ideas to the statewide board,
where students from different chapters get together, to work on across the
state. The problems that we face aren’t just local – everyone is fighting
poverty, environmental destruction, and for affordable education across the
state and the country.
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Why does COPIRG work
statewide?
The
problems that Colorado
faces do not only occur on campus. In order to clean up our waterways, protect
our national forests or lower textbook prices our staff need to go to the
decision makers all across the state and in Washington D.C.
With statewide grassroots support as well as our staff tackling problems from Boulder to Denver to Fort Collins and
throughout the entire state, we are able to take on the special interests that
create these problems and actually win for students and the public interest.
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