NASPA Hill Days

More than a simple fly-in advocacy day, the 2019 NASPA Hill Days experience, offers training and practice in civic engagement for student affairs professionals at all levels from new professionals to Vice Presidents. Through the late summer and fall, participants will engage with NASPA policy and advocacy and civic learning and democratic engagement staff to build a strong foundation of knowledge about key public policy issues, their individual Congressional delegations, and techniques for engaging in advocacy in order to prepare them for their visits with Congressional members and staff in early December. But not to worry – we know you’re busy on campus, too, so we’ve worked to design learning and engagement with other participants in ways that will fit flexibly into your schedule!

The 2019 NASPA Hill Days experience culminates in a two-day event in our nation’s capital when participants, including Vice Presidents of Student Affairs and senior level professionals and new professionals working in student affairs, will participate in exclusive briefings with Hill staff and higher education policy experts prior to a day of scheduled small meetings with attendees’ Congressional delegations in the House and Senate.

Participants will be briefed on NASPA’s positions related to student success, financial aid, support for immigrant and undocumented students, and sexual assault prevention and response. NASPA staff in policy and advocacy and civic engagement will work with them to prepare specific legislative requests for commitment from their elected officials in line with NASPA’s stated public positions and the NASPA Public Policy Agenda.

Please note that many of the policies discussed with the 2019 Hill Days program are changing rapidly so be sure to connect to resources from the NASPA Policy and Advocacy website for the latest updates! NASPA policy and advocacy staff regularly post on policy issues to the NASPA blog. You can sign up to receive a weekly digest of all RPI blog posts or subscribe to the Monthly Policy Update email through your NASPA member portal.

Pre-event Engagement: Monthly from July through November

As a result of participating in the NASPA Hill Days program, individuals will be able to: 

• articulate the benefits and goals of meeting with elected officials as a member of the higher education community to pursue policy and legislative outcomes on behalf of the field;
• identify the primary policy goals and legislative issues of NASPA’s Public Policy Division, and how those goals are advanced through Hill Day meetings with legislators;
• identify the purpose and components of effective meetings with legislative officials;
• plan an effective agenda for an in-person advocacy meeting with elected officials at the state and national level;
• practice and participate in meetings around higher education policy with elected officials;
• articulate the important role that higher education officials play in supporting specific policy making and legislative efforts at the national and state levels;
• express the benefits of creating and maintaining relationships with government officials in a variety of institutions, in addition to those elected to office; and
• identify the role that NASPA plays in public policy making on behalf of its members.

The in-person 2019 NASPA Hill Days schedule was designed to provide participants with interactive and engaging programming, opportunities for deeper discussion, skill building, and networking.

The schedule at a glance is tentative and subject to change. Final program details (sessions, speakers, etc.) will be sent to all participants.

In order to ensure we have a geographically diverse group of participants to meet with as many Congressional delegations as possible, those wishing to participate in NASPA Hill Days should apply between April, 2019 and June 30, 2019. Due to the personalized and customized nature of the 2019 NASPA Hill Days experience, we must limit the event to no more than 75 participants. Please note that only accepted applicants will be allowed to register so that we can appropriately manage appointments with Congressional delegations. The application for the 2019 NASPA Hill Days program is closed. All interested parties have been notified of their application status. 

Note: While we will brief all participants to represent NASPA’s publicly stated policy positions during meetings with Congress, some may wish to additionally represent the non-conflicting policy positions of their institutions as well. Those planning to officially represent the non-conflicting positions of their institution will be strongly encouraged to confer with a representative from their institution's government affairs (GA) staff and may wish to ask a representative from their GA staff to join them for NASPA Hill Days. GA staff do not need to apply to participate but if they will be attending in-person Hill Days events or activities December 2 and/or 3 (other than meetings with your Congressional delegation), they will need to register for the event.

If you would like to exhibit at or sponsor the 2019 NASPA Hill Days, e-mail Kristie Jacobsen Jerde at  kjerde@naspa.org by July 10,2019  for scholarships and November 1, 2019 with the sponsor and exhibitor form.  Questions? Contact Kristie Jacobsen Jerde by phone at 218.280.7578 or via email kjerde@naspa.org.