In recognition of their working class celebration month, the University of Wisconsin Working Class Student Union welcomed a keynote speaker who emphasized the plight of the working class in the university setting and in society at large Tuesday at Memorial Union.
“The working class in the United States is much larger than the standard American imagination tends to think, so we must stop pretending that this class does not exist,” said Sherry Linkon, co-director of the Center for Working Class Studies at Youngstown State University in Ohio.
Linkon discussed the importance of heightening the visibility of the working class, arguing if society refuses to recognize the working class constitutes a large portion of the population, there will never be practices and policies that will improve their conditions.
UW is the of the only university in the country that has a working-class student organization, which is extremely valuable and important because it challenges these class structures of the university setting, Linkon said.
“The presence of the organization helps students to gain a greater understanding of the working class and to realize that working class is more than just a dirty word,” Linkon said.
WCSU founder Chynna Haas said she started the organization because the contrast between working-class and middle-class students was constantly being ignored when it needed to be acknowledged.
“I was considering dropping out of the university because very often professors would make comments about class that were inappropriate and because I was dealing with much trouble from the financial aid office, yet I instead decided to start an organization that would address these issues,” Haas said.
WCSU spokesperson Heidi Freymiller said there is an under-representation of the working class in the university’s curriculum and in the consideration of their needs in general, so WCSU seeks to educate the campus on diversity and to foster communication regarding class.
Many students at the university tend to look at the world through a middle-class lens, which leads to immediate judgments about working-class people and their role in society, Freymiller said. He added WSCU hopes to broaden the students’ view.
Even though the percentage of working-class students continuing with higher education is increasing, they also face many issues once they reach college, Linkon said.
Linkon added many internal tensions exist because the working-class students desire to succeed, yet at the same time, they do not necessarily desire to emulate their middle-class counterparts.
Working-class and middle-class people very often have different breadths of cultural capital, Linkon said. Working-class ideals focus on surviving, enjoying life, and simply being, while many people of the middle class concentrate on advancing themselves as individuals and climbing up the social ladder.
“I am not trying to grant privilege to the working class, yet their situation must be brought to the table and discussed because no one in society ever mentions it,” Linkon said.
