I’ve had a great time out in Wisconsin the last two days, helping out at the state student association’s annual conference. United Council‘s membership, officers, and staff have all been wonderfully warm and generous, and I’ve had a series of amazing conversations about student government, student activism, and the university that will keep me in blogposts for weeks to come.

I’m getting on a plane back home in a couple of hours, but before I go, I wanted to share something I learned about last night.

Founded in 1960, United Council is the oldest surviving state student association in America. But when it was created most American students didn’t have the right to vote. As a result it, like the SSAs that came in its wake, didn’t really start doing serious lobbying and electoral organizing until 1971, when the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution reduced the voting age from 21 to 18.

One of United Council’s first big victories as an electoral advocacy group came in 1974, when the Wisconsin state legislature passed State Statute 36.09(5). That statute reads, in part…

The students of each institution or campus subject to the responsibilities and powers of the board, the president, the chancellor, and the faculty shall be active participants in the immediate governance of and policy development for such institutions. As such, students shall have the primary responsibility for the formulation and review of policies concerning student life, services, and interests. … The students of each institution or campus shall have the right to organize themselves in a manner they determine and to select their representatives to participate in institutional governance.

Students shall be active participants in university governance and policy development. They shall have the primary responsibility for the formulation and review of policies concerning student life. And they shall have the right to organize themselves in a manner they determine.

Good stuff.

Happy 50th birthday, UC.