Last week, HISP graduate students Abby Tesfaye, Tom Gross, Imania Price, Elizabeth Totten, Mandi Solomon, Sehba Imtiaz, Tyler Smith, Kate Kachovec and Andrew Malone descended on Capitol Hill with faculty member Constance Ramirez to discuss an issue fundamental to their profession: protecting the country’s most important historic structures. The excursion, a brief trip over the District line, is an annual trek for students in UMD’s Historic Preservation Program, this year as part of HISP630: Preservation Policy and Planning. “Lobby Day,” which is one feature of a week of advocacy organized by Preservation Action and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO), brings over 250 preservationists from across the country to Washington, D.C., to promote sound federal preservation policy and programs. “Lobby Day was a new experience for most of us, and it was wonderful,” said Abby Tesfaye, a HISP/URSP graduate student. “The delegations were very inviting towards us as student preservationists!”