Education & Class blog

http://educationandclass.com/

from the Stanford Daily...

re: admissions/student life at Stanford, Amherst

http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/6/7/admissionsDeptSeeksRiseInLowincomeStudents

Another find from Arianna...

* Sludge Tested as Lead Poisoning Fix in Poor Black Neighborhoods *

Lawmakers and the NAACP are calling for an investigation into reports that
federally funded scientific experiments in 2000 spread sewage sludge on
yards in poor black neighborhoods to test if it could fight lead poisoning
in children. The Associated Press reported Sunday that researchers spread a
mix of human and industrial wastes from sewage treatment plants on the lawns
of nine low-income families in Baltimore and a vacant lot next to an
elementary school in East St. Louis, Illinois. We speak with John Heilprin,
the AP reporter who broke the story.

Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/23/sludge_tested_as_lead_poisoning_fix

Labor Notes conference

Recent Labor Notes conference: http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080414/006771.html

Reading Material

An article Cappy wrote for Inside Higher Ed entitled "Higher Ed's Changing Economic Landscape":

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/04/10/hill

Also an article Arianna emailed some of us a while ago, "The Rise of the Ghetto-Fabulous Party," about offensive, problematic parties students of privilege host & attend (from Color Lines):

http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=%0A248

SUNY Stony Brook Conference, Crazy Lunch, Conference Pictures in!!

Thanks for reminding me to post re: the lunch, Lulu (and also the SB conference! I am trying to figure out a way to fund that right now.) Here’s the link for the SUNY Stony Brook conference—titled “How Class Works”—for those of you who are interested:

http://www.sunysb.edu/workingclass/conference/2008/

The following is a recount of my lunch with PAC (the one I was asking for your advice about, & posted about, below)…

I knew I was sort of in for it when I saw one of the (wealthy, older, tanned) women who comprised the Council (it’s a group of mostly alumnae/i I think) walking her white POODLE on a leash through the restaurant. This woman did not sit with me but three other very lovely, also rich older tanned white women sat with me...cappy came in late to the whole thing & sat at some other table with a different student & more alums.

We had a conversation about the different dorms on campus etc for a while when I decided I would just begin THE conversation haha, so I said, “I’d like to tell you about why I am here…” and I tell them all about us and our events and the conference and man we have done so much this year and are so awesome that it is not hard to make us sound very impressive!

One of the alums I was sitting with asked me what I would like to see change institutionally in order to make the transition easier for lower-income students—great question, right! So I suggest:
a. peer mentoring system (jr/sr paired w/ incoming freshmen who self-identify as lower-income/first gen)
b. alumnae/i network of those alums that were first-gen and/or lower-income/working class during their time at Vassar, to help with the problem of lower-income/first gen students not having social capital that other wealthier students do…(we will be putting out a call in the Winter ’08 Vassar Quarterly piece about the conference for alums who were first-gen and/or lower income during their time @ VC to email us, to get this network going)
c. finally, a campus life resource center devoted to class issues, with an accompanying administrative assistant to campus life (like the Blegen and ALANA centers have now…but then I had to explain to these alums what Blegen & ALANA were…for those of you non-Vassar kids, they are our resource centers for LGBTQ students and African American/Black, Latino, Asian American and Native American students…)

Another of the alums I sat with, after I made these suggestions, said the following--it is like pretty much a direct quote:
"I’m not trying to take away from your experience or your story because I think that the work you're doing is great, but I just want to bring something to your attention that you may not be aware of. You know, people of wealthier backgrounds struggle with these issues too...sons and daughters of wealthy parents worry that they won't be able to make as much money as their parents! And sometimes siblings feel badly because some of their siblings make more than others...like my younger brother...I just feel so badly that he has to WORK!!!! But at the same time I think it is important that my children understand
that people do need to work...even though they'll get their inheritance..."
You can imagine me sitting on the edge of my seat barely able to let her continue--but keeping cool--as I launched into this whole rant about social capital and THEN i was like, “I would just like to turn your example back on you...imagine the child of a janitor going off to a school like this and then having your child want to come out of this school and hold a job that places her in a higher class than her father...and then she may go on to make much more than her father ever did! Now, imagine being that parent...and then imagine being that child."
They stared at me with their jaws dropped for a minute...so, I think I got through a little bit, after TWO HOURS of me doing my best to explain the needs of lower-income students.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to cappy but she said hi to me afterwards & wanted to know how the rest of the conference was. I saw her chatting w/ these 3 women I had been sitting with as I was leaving…good sign?

Wow, so I will just take up this whole blog now…haha sorry this is so long. Buuut I just had a great great meeting w/ Ed Pittman (remember, he was one of the panelists on the faculty panel…he’s VC’s associate dean of the college for Campus Life) who was very supportive of the idea of a resource center/accompanying administrator for lower-income/first gen students. I will be writing a proposal for this demand (I’d love some help if anyone’s interested) and working with him on it—then I’ll meet with Cappy later this semester to discuss the idea with her and hopefully it can be up and running in some form next year or the year after…so, in conclusion, we are moving full steam ahead in the right direction!!! Hooray!

ALSO, the conference pictures are assembled @ this link...
http://pa.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000sl8BvTJLQa4

You'll need to sign in as kabradystepien@gmail.com, and the password is um, "password"...haha. There are tooons of our lunch w/ Cappy...

class issues on the radio

Still coming down from how great the conference was, I was pleasantly surprised to hear this program on the radio on the way to make groceries yesterday. Definitely worth listening; the segment on Amherst's no loans policy was really interesting. If you want to vomit, be sure to check out this segment. It's pretty wtf-tastic.

In other news, I hear Kathleen had a fine time at the President's lunch on Friday.

In other other news, post y'all!!!!

Also - a reminder. It's still a ways off, but if you're planning on going to the SUNY Stonybrook conference, register for that shit soon . . . It gets more expensive if you wait til after the first week of May (and that counts for those of us who can no longer finagle money out of our colleges to cover things of the sort).