Members of the Student Committee on Political Action will travel to Ohio this weekend to participate in a conference addressing tuition increases and higher educational access.

The Progressive Student Organization (PSO) from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, is sponsoring the two-day regional conference.

Semesterly tuition increases have become “inevitable,” said PSO faculty adviser R. Errol Lam. The increases have limited access to higher education, and students think nothing can be done about it, he said.

Lam said students from NIU were invited to participate in the conference after PSO members met them at a Progressive Student Network meeting in Madison, Wis., last August. The PSO was not aware of the SCOPA organization.

Lam said SCOPA was invited because there is “a lot of student action there (NIU).

“By bringing concerned activists and others together to share information and experiences, we anticipate a resultant plan of action that is appropriate to address students’ concerns regarding threats to their rights towards education,” he said.

Student Association President Paula Radtke said the NIU students are attending the conference as “a mission of good will.” Bowling Green is experiencing funding problems similar to NIU, she said.

Julie Stege, one of the six students attending the conference, said the PSO asked for those who were involved in the Day of Action events last April 13 to attend because of their experience. Stege said the students going are members of the John Lennon Society as well as SCOPA. SA senators and other students were unable to go because of space limitations, she said.

Stege said that although SCOPA and JLS actions have caused people to believe that the two groups take respectability away from NIU, students from Bowling Green want to learn more from them and invited them because “they were looking for help.”

Time magazine also has contacted members of both groups concerning the student movement in Illinois, she said.

Activities sponsored by SCOPA and JLS are effective because “SCOPA and JLS actions receive national attention,” she said.

Lam expects 30 to 50 students representing the midwest with about 100 students attending the conferences from Bowling Green.