Physics Advocacy in Action

Soon after details of the House’s tax reform bill were released, the APS Office of Public Affairs (OPA) worked quickly with the APS Forum on Graduate Student Affairs (FGSA) to urge the Senate to reject the tax on graduate school tuition waivers included in the House bill. In the first 24 hours, more than 500 graduate students contacted their Senators – this included 21 out of 26 members of the Senate Finance Committee. The next day, the Senate plan was released and they did not include the provision! In total, over 1,200 people have sent more than 2,600 messages to Congress, making this APS’s largest campaign of the year. APS will keep working with FGSA to monitor the issue.

In other advocacy news, undergraduates at the Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting in Pittsburgh presented their research to a staff member for U.S. Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Read their story here in APS News »