Student Government representatives, armed with free coffee, encouraged students to call their state government officials in the Live Oak Lounge on Wednesday. SG officials sat in the lounge from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m to inform students about higher education budget cuts and to motivate them to take action.Some students were negative and unresponsive. “I think a lot of students are concerned with midterms right now,” said Katie Cicardo, SG chief of staff. “We really want to educate people and hopefully motivate them enough so that they call on their own time.”SG also handed out guides to students to instruct them in what to say when they make their calls.”Today has gone well,” said Chloe Chetta SG director of organization outreach. “We’ve gotten lots of students from in state and even some from out of state to call.”SG President Stuart Watkins said the event was so successful SG will be hosting it weekly until the end of the semester. “At one point, there was a huge line,” Watkins said. “I think the SG campaigns outside have been sending people in here.”Some students made their phone calls at the SG booth while others like Kathrin McLean, coastal and environmental studies freshman, decided to wait until after class. “I feel this affects us, and I should have a say in what happens,” McLean said. Other students like Xinyue Guo, biochemistry freshman, had their own reasons for calling legislators.”Budget cuts means that they will probably cut more classes, and I don’t want that to happen,” Guo said. Karen St. Germain, D-Plaquemines, also spoke to professor Wayne Parent’s Louisiana Politics class in Lockett Hall about the importance of student phone calls. “I want you to know you make such a difference when we are in the legislature,” St. Germain said. “It’s when you don’t communicate you lose out.”—–Contact Mandy Francois at [email protected]