The Wisconsin Coalition for Domestic Partner Benefits held a Day of Action Wednesday at Library Mall to encourage students to actively support partner benefits for Wisconsin employees.
Claire Lempke, Associated Students of Madison media specialist, said ASM promoted the event to support the ASM program called Quality and Accessible Education.
One of ASM's goals is to make education better on campus in whatever way we can possible,"" she said.
According to Lempke, UW-Madison professors and staff members are considered state employees. She said the lack of domestic partner benefits is detrimental to UW-Madison because it is harder to attract and keep employees without the benefits being provided.
""We've been noticing a huge trend of professors leaving to go to places where they can receive those benefits,"" she said.
Day of Action Coordinator Leia Ferrari said many professors leave UW-Madison because Wisconsin state employees are at a disadvantage compared to employees from other schools.
""Wisconsin is the only Big Ten school that doesn't have domestic partner benefits,"" she said.
Event coordinators said they hoped the event will generate support for the benefits to be included in the 2009 state budget.
Students made phone calls and e-mails throughout the day to voice their opinions to Wisconsin representatives.
UW-Madison student Zechariah Ruffin said she participated in the event because she felt domestic partner benefits are a part of a serious equality issue that needs to be solved.
ASM Academic Affairs Chair Chris Tiernan said the event was a great way to get students involved in accomplishing ASM's overall goal to gain domestic partner benefits.
""We're losing a lot of our really great professors, so this is a way that we identified that we could change what's going on,"" he said.
