Last fall, OSPIRG Students at the University of Oregon took action towards ending hunger, protecting our oceans, lowering the costs of textbooks, and protecting wildlife! With over 100 volunteers and student leaders this year, OSPIRG has continued to lead the way advocating for a greener, healthier, and more meaningful future for students statewide.
Tackling Student Hunger
Our country has a waste problem. In Oregon, 968 thousand tons of food went uneaten in 2022 alone. That would fill enough garbage trucks to line up along I-5 from the Northern to the Southern borders of Oregon almost three times. There is no reason why we should be throwing away so much food while Oregonians are going hungry everyday. This year we participated in the National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. We held 7 educational, service, and advocacy events this week to raise awareness for this issue. It all culminated in a lobby day we held at the end of the week where we met with almost 30 legislative offices in one day to talk to them about this issue.
Protecting Our Oceans
The Oregon Coast is part of what makes our state such a special place to live. It’s a place where we can go to reconnect with nature, it’s home to thousands of different species, and is a critical ally in the fight against climate change. This year, OSPIRG students are advocating for increased funding to protect our coastal wildlife all across Oregon. We collected support from thousands of students on campus, collected sign on’s from faculty and other important voices for our ocean, and hosted cleanup events to build support for the campaign this fall!
OSPIRG Student Leaders and staff meeting with Sen. Courtney Neron on OSPIRGs campaign to Protect Our Oceans.
Funding Wildlife Crossings
America’s freeways and highways cut through wildlife habitats, dividing landscapes, making them too small for animals that need to move in order to graze, hunt, mate and migrate. And, collisions with wildlife are bad news for all species, including our own. We need more crossings for animals to use, reconnecting their habitat and ensuring a safer world for wildlife and humans alike. So, this year OSPIRG students advocated to increase funding for wildlife crossings in Oregon. We educated students on campus about this issue, and travelled all across the state to get dozens of businesses signed on in support of the campaign from urban and rural areas across Oregon!
Making Textbooks Affordable
Textbooks are WAY too expensive. The college board estimates that students should budget an average of $1,200 a year for textbooks and course materials. But they don’t need to be that expensive. This year OSPIRG is continuing to advocate for expanding open educational resources (OER) on campus. This fall we collected surveys from over 300 students on campus at UO and over 4,000 surveys from students across the country analyzing their experiences purchasing course materials. We used this data to release our most recent report: Fixing the Broken Textbooks Market, Fourth Edition.
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Training the Next Generation of Public Interest Advocates
Every year, we get thousands of students on campus to take action in support of our campaigns, mobilize hundreds of volunteers, and train dozens of student leaders on core advocacy skills from grassroots organizing, to working with the media, to lobbying their elected officials, and more!
This fall we held a regional organizing retreat in Portland, OR where we brought students from Oregon and Washington together for a weekend of skills training, briefings, discussions, and campaign actions to continue to build our student leaders from across the region.
All made possible by the OSPIRG fee!
All of this campaign work is made possible because of the students paying the OSPIRG fee. For over 50 years, students have voiced their support for funding our organization through a $2.14 per-student per-term refundable fee. Students pool their resources together to hire staff, such as advocates, lobbyists, and organizers, to work with students on issues that they care about and represent students where decisions are made—in Salem and Washington D.C.
Looking towards the spring, OSPIRG has plans to expand our impact, our training program, make more social change at the local, state, and federal level, and continue to represent students’ interests in places where decisions are being made.