A weekly inside look at the unique faces and personalities that make up The College of Wooster community.

Sally Kershner
Features Editor

Where are you from, and what was the path that brought you from there to Wooster?

So, just briefly, I grew up in the city of Pittsburgh, blue collar family; I worked in a gas station that my father ran. Accidentally ended up going to college because one of the people whose cars we serviced brought in an application — I filled it out and ended up at Colgate. I was there during the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam war protest, so I had my consciousness raised in that way, and the story just evolves from there … Long story short, I came to Wooster in 1990, and I’ve been here ever since. The attraction for Wooster, I think, was [that] they were a school committed to principles of justice and diversity. It didn’t always embody those, but it’s clearly been a part of its mission from the beginning.

What other student protests have you seen in your time here, and what made them successful?

One was about five years ago, when the administration decided to outsource food services. Another is the Living Wage movement. In both of these [protests] and in the Call-in, we had hundreds of students representing numerous groups and constituencies across campus making clear to the administration that they were committed to staying with the issue until something was done to resolve it. I think it’s both the size of the movement and its willingness to have staying power, to exert continuous pressure.

What should students do to ensure that the demands promised by the school last Wednesday are actually met?

First, the demands that were met — how do I phrase this — have been met in terms of… good intentions. But almost all of those demands must also be approved by the Board of Trustees. The administration cannot speak on the behalf of the Board of Trustees, and the board can decide that it’s not going to meet those demands. So, students need to monitor each of these demands as they move forward to know they’re being addressed; people need to be designated to ask questions about what exact progress is being made. They need to have a very strong presence at the Board of Trustees meeting this spring. And I think the students need to make clear that if these demands are not met — especially the ones they feel are most important — they are willing to once again act, either by re-occupying Galpin or some other action of protest.

Additionally, leadership behind these groups must be making sure they’re passing leadership roles down to younger members. When the seniors graduate, the juniors and sophomores must be ready to step up and continue fighting so these demands don’t just disappear. More often than not, the strategy — intentional or unintentional — is just to wait until the active students graduate and then forget about the issue.

What do you think is the role of faculty in a student-led protest?

Quite honestly, I think that if the students can garner faculty allies, that’s positive. But the students should never, ever depend upon faculty and administrators for moving their protest forward. I think it undermines their power.

Anything else?

I think students were articulate and strong about changes that need to be made on campus to improve the lives of students and possibly some faculty, but they simply overlooked the entire part of the community which makes their meals, does their dishes, cleans their bathrooms, shovels the snow — many of whom work for less than a living wage. A large number of our hourly employees leave The College of Wooster at the end of the day to go to another job because they can’t make ends meet with the salaries they’re receiving here. The differential between our highest-paid and our lowest-paid workers on our campus is about 20 to one. That is massive wage inequality.

So, my hope is that this powerful activist student community includes our hourly workers as they move forward for change, pushing the board to raise salaries higher to a living wage. I would love to see students rally around our hourly workers, getting to know them and supporting them, because they honestly cannot speak for themselves; they can’t speak out without risking losing their jobs.