The Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG) was started 30 years ago by students who were sick and tired of politicians simply screwing the younger generation. This was 1973, just two years after college students finally won the right to vote. But even with the vote, students were being ignored by the people in power. Politicians weren't paying attention to the environment, consumer choice, fair pricing or any of the other issues that students cared about. There was no one to stand up for the students' interests; they had to do it themselves.

So they banded together. There would be no adult supervision, no outside control, no university that could cut funding or halt progress or impose restrictions. The students decided that the best way to be effective was to hire advocates to lobby 24/7 for the students' agenda and organizers to teach the students the skills they needed. They were going to beat the corporations at their own game and make their voices heard.

They developed a fee structure as democratic as they could imagine, where students voluntarily taxed themselves for the causes they cared about. Every two years since MASSPIRG was started at Amherst College in 1985, we have had a vote to reaffirm student support for the work we do. It's a fundamental part of our charter. Each semester, students also have the option of requesting that their fee be refunded. So, in addition to voting as a student body every two years, each student, individually, decides whether or not he or she wants to give money to support MASSPIRG. The money, in addition to funding on-campus events, goes to hiring the advocates and organizers necessary to coordinate students across the state and to represent student interests on Beacon Hill. This infrastructure is essential to the effectiveness of the organization.

Today, there are 23 colleges and universities across the state with MASSPIRG chapters and 11 other states with similar student PIRG chapters. The Amherst College chapter of MASSPIRG is part of this larger state-wide and national lobbying network, administered and directed by a student board. There is always an Amherst student on that board (for the past three years, the Chair has been an Amherst student), working with students across the state to make important decisions on campaign selection, hiring and budgeting. All students involved in MASSPIRG are invited and encouraged to share their opinions with their board representative and to attend state board meetings.

MASSPIRG is an integral part of the Amherst College campus, working to effect change here and in this community, giving students a chance to work with local organizations, politicians and college administrators on the issues they care about. Recently, we have brought groups of students to five different sites for river cleanups, educated the campus about the problems of hunger and homelessness through an annual awareness week, raised money to start a Five College soup kitchen by holding an annual hunger cleanup and give up your meals days, held a boxing match between a polar bear and a smoke stack to educate about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and raised awareness of the detrimental effects of mercury in fish on women and children by holding an all-male fish fry. And that's just a small fraction of the things we've been doing on campus.

In addition to these many campus events, MASSPIRG, unlike any other organization on campus, seeks to effect change beyond the Amherst College campus. It is only by working at this larger level that we can have a significant impact on issues like global warming and poverty in America. This is what the students who first created MASSPIRG had in mind.

There is no denying the legislative success MASSPIRG has experienced in the last 30 years. Often single-handedly, PIRG students have helped to pass generic drug laws, small claims courts, alternative energy initiatives, Bottle Bills (money for recycled bottles), Lemon Laws, the FCC Fairness Doctrine, Truth in Advertising, Auto Insurance Reform-the list goes on. Last year, by sending Governor Romney more petitions than he had every received on any issue, we convinced him to pass a climate change action plan to reduce Massachusetts' effect on global warming, the first plan of its kind in the nation. We also successfully pushed for mercury emission reductions, the nation's toughest car pollution standards and a mandate of smoke-free workplaces.

This is documented history. Name a step forward in the progressive/environmental/consumer rights movement, and MASSPIRG students have been at the forefront, if not the lone voice advancing the cause. There is a long, storied, Amherst-based history to this organization. Let's not stop fighting for change now.

Palevsky can be reached at hipalevsky@amherst.edu

Viswanathan can be reached at nkviswanathan@amherst.edu