Oregon Students Association (OSA)
What is OSA?
Oregon Student Association is a statewide, student-led nonprofit which fights for the collective interests of students in postsecondary education in Oregon. We do this through lobbying at the state capitol, grassroots organizing to help students build political power, and providing direct support to student governments and student groups on campus when they are trying to make change on their campus?
How Does Student Governance of OSA look?
With any nonprofit, there is a board which sets the mission, strategy, priorities, and budget for the nonprofit. OSA’s boards are college students. We also have a staff that answers to our Executive Director, and the Executive Director answers directly to our students and is managed by our student boards.
We have 3 boards:
The Board of Governors (BOG) is made of representatives from the elected student government at each member campus.
The Oregon Students of Color Coalition (OSCC) is made up of BIPOC student leaders from each member campus.
The Oregon Student Equal Rights Alliance (OSERA) is made up of LGBTQ+ Student Leaders from each member campus.
Our student boards propose and vote on priority issues, legislation, and campaigns OSA will work on. They also set our budget for the year, take part in planning events, and give feedback and direction to staff on what students want to see from the organization.
When all three boards come together to make large decisions which impact the entire organization, they do it through the OSA General Assembly. The General Assembly (GA) is when all three boards meet as one body to vote on budget, bylaws changes, taking stances on legislation, and starting new campaigns.
How Can I Get Involved with OSA?
There are a lot of ways to get involved!
If you want to take part in one of OSA’s campaigns by attending weekly campaign meetings, you can email our Organizing Director, Gaby at gaby@orstudents.org. Our campaigns include: Food and Housing Insecurity, Textbook Affordability, Cultural Competency on Campus, Support for DACA and undocumented students, Support for International Students, and Increasing Financial Aid Access.
If you want to become a board member, you can talk to your student government about ways to become a board member, or contact our Executive Director, Andrew at andrew@orstudents.org.
If you want to sign up to testify in support of one of our bills, do an online action, or even come do a lobby meeting with your elected officials with OSA, you can go to our linktree to see what opportunities are coming up: https://linktr.ee/orstudents