Georgia college students and employees are planning to gather at the State Capitol on Monday morning in an effort to show legislators and their fellow citizens how they feel about proposed cuts to the University System of Georgia.

No one organization is organizing the event, explained Georgia Highlands College student Jenny Sperry.

“Really it is just all the college students that feel that they are threatened and we came together. It’s as though one person said ‘March 15! Capitol!’ and it spread like wild fire,” said Sperry, who is organizing the Highlands participation in the event.

At Highlands, proposed cuts include the closing of two campuses, the firing of at least 30 people, the end of several programs of study and a reduction in the number of students allowed into others.

“The plan is come, ... and bring every dream you possess for your future and fight for it,” Sperry said of the protest. “We have signs and voices and petitions. This is a strength, a unity. We are the future, ... and we will not let them make it harder on us this than they already have.”

Georgia Highlands’ Jesse Bishop, an assistant professor of English, said he and several other faculty and staff members will be traveling to Atlanta to participate in the rally, and he knows of other students and educators from around the state that are planning to join them.

Bishop, a graduate of GHC when it was known as Floyd College and the University of West Georgia, said he is taking part in the protest to protect the mission of his alma mater. He said the rally will allow participants to show lawmakers the faces behind the numbers.

“We need to cultivate a long-term response to the issue so that we can actually solve this problem. With any luck, the folks in this state will realize that the USG is a vital component of living in a prosperous state,” said Bishop. “Georgia, its legislature, and the public have some really tough decisions facing them, but I think they’ll realize that an educated populace means a higher quality of life with less crime and more business opportunities, corporate and entrepreneurial, coming into the state.”

He also pointed out that smaller schools like Highlands are more vulnerable to cuts.

“We serve a population that typically gets overlooked. A lot people have written off two-year college students as somehow less valuable or less important than the four-year kids. As a former two-year student, I can tell you that the support I got at Floyd college is directly responsible for my success,” said Bishop.

One of the online groups leading the effort, Georgia Students for Higher Public Education, has about 4,000 members representing dozens of Georgia colleges and high schools from around the state. Along with a half-dozen other groups, they have been encouraging Georgians to write letters and make phone calls since proposed cuts were first announced last month.

The efforts have already started to pay off, as noted by USG Chancellor Erroll Davis. On Friday afternoon Davis sent an e-mail to college presidents in Georgia about Monday’s planned rally.

He told them to tell their students the budget cuts are now expected to be much less than originally expected thanks partly to their efforts.

“They should be made aware that their voices have already been heard and that progress has been made,” Davis wrote.

The rally at the Capitol will begin at 10 a.m. Monday, and while the legislature will not be in session, GSHPE has lined up several speakers to address those in attendance.