March 1, 2016 - 00:39
The idea for this postcard came from attending the community day of learning last Tuesday and our class discussion on Thursday. The first session I attended during the community day of learning was led by my student manager from Erdman Dining hall. We were talking about the ways that dining service workers on campus are mistreated and the ways that these issues related to the overarching CDL theme of class. I am a supervisor at Erdman, so this issue is very relevant to my life here at college. My student manager organized different displays that showcased the experiences of student workers in dining services and we spent the first twenty minutes of our session walking around the room in silence and looking at the displays. One display was inspired by a conversation my student manager had with someone in administration when she was asking for our wages to be raised to the same amount that students make in other campus jobs, such as working in the library. This is an issue that students in dining services have been trying to fix for a while. The man laughed at her and said “You’re fighting for a few quarters.” So, my student manager made a banner that featured that same quotation, and around it, she put responses from student workers answering the question, “What would you do with those ‘few quarters’ if you had them?” The answers ranged from responses like, paying off my college loans, to responses like, renting a car to visit my ailing grandmother. It was a very powerful display.
In class on Thursday, we discussed the meaning of “discourse” and then we had a conversation with a partner. Something that came up in my conversation was that, in order for discourse to happen, there needs to be a space available or there needs to be a space created for that purpose. This made me think back to the community day of learning and I was grateful that our college created this space for people to bring up issues relevant to our lives as college students. Without the space of the community day of learning, my student manager would not have had an opportunity to create such powerful displays addressing the ways dining service workers face issues involving class on campus. I think that it is empowering for students to have an opportunity, like the day of learning, to bring a group of people together to talk about an issue on our campus, just like my student manager did. It felt productive to share our experiences with others, as if we were taking a step in the right direction. So this week, to tie it all together, I made a design for my postcard by tracing over quarters with colored pencils, which is inspired by my student manager’s display relating to what we, as students working to pay off college tuition, would do with a “few quarters.”
Comments
"a few quarters" -- intervening in a discourse of disparagement?
Submitted by alesnick on March 1, 2016 - 08:07 Permalink
Yes! Really powerful work that does "tie it all together." The visual is such a compelling enactment of the idea of transforming what we are given -- taking power, in Adrienne Rich's terms, " to use what we have to invent what we desire." "Investing" the "few" quarters with the meaningful activities people would spend them on brings color and also plenty, impact. As Carolyn Heilbrun writes in Writing a Woman's Life, “Power is the ability to take one's place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one's part matter." CDL creates space, as you say for different actions and interactions -- and reactions. What made the workshop feel productive? Would you say something more about the specific ways in which it empowered you and others, and might lead to further change?
I think that the workshop
Submitted by mcsweeney on March 1, 2016 - 11:49 Permalink
I think that the workshop felt productive because of the way that others were listening to us and actually learning about the experience of student workers in the dining hall. In the past, it felt like there was really no way to remedy the problems we want to fix, besides chains of emails and responses that really led to nothing. It didn't feel like anyone was really listening to or caring about the topics we wanted to bring up. However, at the workshop, there were many people in attendance who have power to make changes on campus and, in the space, they had to listen to our stories and care about our experiences. The stakes felt higher because of the powerful displays created by my student manager. What I think I am getting at is that, the workshop felt empowering and productive because people were listening to us and being moved by our message.
power to make changes
Submitted by alesnick on March 1, 2016 - 15:44 Permalink
thanks for this reply and ongoing analysis; it's important. Yes, people, including people who hold institutional power, had to listen -- in part because the displays were so powerful -- and they were moved, the changed in a sense -- and others witnessed one another listening; so the people in power were witnessed by others who can then hold them to account?