Over the past year, the Student Solidarity Organization (SSO) has been campaigning to help draw support for Point Park’s adjunct professors.
The organization is now turning its focus on student voices and concerns by organizing events such as a recent forum on unions.
“When we have ideas for events, we all jump together to put everything together,” Samey Lee, a global cultural studies major and one of the main organizers for the organization, said in an interview Nov. 7.
SSO held its “What is a Union” event, hosted by Jon Lepley from the United Steel Workers Union in Academic Hall on Nov. 7.
Adjunct professors are the part-time faculty at the University. As of Nov. 7, they began negotiations with the administration to start bargaining their contract for job security and better wages.
Lepley’s main goal of the meeting was to try and explain to the audience exactly what a union is and what its main goals are.
“The union is a tool or mechanism for the workers,” Lepley said during the workshop.
Lepley believes the organization is doing a good thing by trying to voice student concerns.
“They are on the right track by talking to students,” Lepley said.
He encourages students leaving college and going to the workplace to take what they experienced at Point Park and talk to their co-workers to find common ground and issues to resolve.
Lauren Finkel, a global cultural studies and photojournalism major, has helped the group by making buttons and signs and getting signatures in support for the adjunct movement.
“I consider myself an activist,” Finkel said in an interview Nov. 7. “I started going to the meetings and helping Samey [Lee] with all the stuff with the adjuncts.”
Members of SSO agreed that the administration could do a better job of communicating with students.
“I definitely think that is something we need improving on,” Dane Hager, a global cultural studies major and member of the organization, said.
Lee also thinks that better communication with students form the administration would make a difference.
“I think that there is a lot of work to be done between students and staff to better communicate between each other and work cooperatively to make changes on campus,” Lee said.
According to Lee, she and two other students, who are no longer involved with the organization, started the club a year ago when the adjunct faculty began organizing to help and support them. The organization lacks formal hierarchy and is run by several members.
They then decided to take things, in her words, “a step further,” to try and make changes on campus for the benefit of the students.
“We want to improve our university,” Lee said. “That is how we got started.”
The organization can be reached any time on its Facebook page “Point Park Student Solidarity Organization.” It can also be reached at its website, at [email protected] or via their Twitter handle @SSO_PPU. They meet every Wednesday at 4 p.m. and Thursdays at 8 p.m. in the University Center.
