David Hentz, freshman graphic arts management major, said he wished more students would get involved in the community and become advocates.
"More people, more voice, more change," he said.
Students had a chance to advocate public policy issues Saturday when 50 students wrote 250 letters to government officials.
Senior women's studies major Betsy Mills said she and two Honors College seniors chose to organize an event that promoted advocacy.
All three of the students are involved in the community and thought a letter writing event was a good idea, she said.
Students don't have many chances on campus to voice their opinions, Mills said.
The letter-writing event addressed issues such as poverty, students' rights, human rights, diversity and the environment.
Senior communication studies major Jenny Shea said they created a group called Coalition of Student Advocates as a way to bring different student organization together and advertise for the letter-writing event.
Shea said it was important to bring people together who cared about different issues and committed to social change.
Mills said the different members in the group focused on different aspects of planning the event, such as advertising the event, having speakers come to the event and administrative aspects.
"We just picked our strengths and [went] to town on those," she said.
When Sen. Barack Obama's visit was announced earlier in the week, senior legal studies major Amber Michel was disappointed.
Sen. Obama's visit was scheduled at the same time her honors thesis project was scheduled, a letter-writing event meant to increase student advocacy that was planned for more than a year.
"Honestly, I was speechless," Michel said. "I was really didn't know how to fix it."
Michel said they solved that problem by rescheduling the event for later in the day.
As the event started, State Senator Sue Errington spoke at the event and said letter writing was the best way to create change.
Sen. Errington still writes to other representatives in Congress on issues she believes in, she said.
"A lot of the so-called special interests are you," Errington said. "Everybody's got a special interest."
Shea said Sen. Errington was easy to work with and jumped at the chance to speak at the event.
Hentz heard about the event when Mills spoke to members of Residence Hall Association, he said.
Hentz was with a group that wrote about human rights, he said. His group wrote to the federal government to stop the war in
Sudan, he said.
His experience working with other students on writing the letter was good because the students were interested and willing to compromise, he said.
"I just wish as an individual I could do more," he said. "But since I can't, I chose to group with other students to make the change that's necessary."
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