Every year, the ISU Ambassadors, which is the lobbying arm of the Government of the Student Body, puts on a big to-do at the state capitol with similar student groups from Iowa and Northern Iowa. In past years, the Ambassadors have put forward notices and announcements about RSVP-ing so that they can charter buses and arrange lunch for attending students.

Wednesday was Regent’s Day and, apart from a few miscellaneous fliers floating around and the Iowa Board of Regents tweeting its news release, which is dated Monday, March 11; on Monday and Tuesday, there was no promotional campaign to organize a show of support for the university system we all supposedly love. In fact, on Wednesday, the members of the Iowa Board of Regents — who, even if absent from Regent’s Day in the past, would still be expected to appear at such an event — were here in Ames holding their monthly meeting.

Regent’s Day originally was scheduled for March 25 — the day we return from Spring Break. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Iowa and Northern Iowa would not be able to attend that day’s events. In order to have a unified presence, the lobbying day was moved to Wednesday with limited student involvement.

Traditionally, the point of Regents Day is to swarm the state capitol with students so that they — the people most immediately affected by legislative decisions about funding for public universities — can interact with state senators and representatives. Although some students from Iowa State, Northern Iowa and Iowa managed to get down to Des Moines on Wednesday, it is unlikely that they had more of a presence or a greater impact than any other lobbying group that uses the capitol’s soaring golden rotunda to give a breakfast or lunch or host a press conference.

We have said, in the past, that politics is a spontaneous, continuous activity that should be done all the time. We have argued that that applies to Regents Day and interactions between the student body and members of the state legislature. Indeed, students should interact with their representatives as much as possible.

But in the same way that voting every few years is many Americans’ only political act, for many students, the annual trip to Regents Day is their only opportunity to meet state Sen. Herman Quirmbach, or state Rep. Lisa Heddens, or another lawmaker from a district that includes a regent university. Additionally, it might be the students’ only opportunity to step inside Iowa’s beautiful capitol building and learn something about the political process.

Talking with a legislator in his or her natural habitat serves the same function as laboratory science. Discussion is the laboratory of politics and, like other sciences, practice and experience make the practitioner better. Frustration and disenchantment with politics is always a latent factor in society, but such feelings have increased as partisan gridlock has become a commonplace in Washington, D.C. It is clear that we are in need of more statesmen and fewer hacks; the number of the former will increase as younger Americans decide to take an interest in the condition and direction of their country.

Some of the normal Regent’s Day activities will take place March 25. As confusing as this scheduling seems, having such opportunities for students is a good thing.