The idea for the Student Employee Commission began with stories from some of the more than 1,500 students working on campus. Ohio University Culinary Services increased student hours 89.5 percent over 10 years. The effort to establish the SEC on the Student Senate was starting to take shape. The potential for the SEC is ever more relevant as students go to work each day on the OU campus, and the time is appropriate to present it for a resolution.
In 2010, an OU student was named the national Student Employee of the Year by the American Association for Student Culinary Services! The inception for the SEC was introduced to the senate in November 2010. Rollbacks to public education and related jobs in our state led to a 10.5 percent loss of funding in 2012: all the more reason to encourage the SEC. Offers of sponsorship for the SEC from a commissioner spawned hope. The proposition for an employee commission rose again during Fall 2011. This time, derision arose against a “labor union” and “expanded government,” as if student employees do not belong to a union of students (a public university). Students have demonstrated they can be studious and work: during the 2010-11 academic year alone, student employees at Alden Library worked 87,494.38 hours; earned $667,787.59; answered 32,347 questions; checked out 419,956 items; and together with full-time staff provided services to 1,619,846 patrons—all that in addition to their coursework. A configuration more attentive to the population of students—and more responsive for facilitating economic opportunities for the constituents of that group to thereby impact the surrounding community—is required for people who should be employed.
The original resolution language for the SEC is “Whereas there exists a Residence Life Commission dedicated to the services associated with student housing, residential employment, and campus wellbeing at the campus of the Ohio University; and whereas there does not exist a commission representative of students employed in dining, library, laboratory, clinical, recreational, or other official positions at the campus of the Ohio University; and whereas student employees seek to serve the student body in leadership positions as equals amongst their peers and as representatives in university democratic institutions, be it resolved the combination of existing Student Senate resources for student employees, merger of relative commissions, and their establishment of the Student Employee Commission.” It just needs a sponsor!
The Student Speak-Out to the Student Senate on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011, was where I explained the commission in a brief speech. What came next for the SEC was a second campuswide tour of all major employment centers, and student workers signed what may have been the first petition by student employees of the student government, provided to senators and other members as the “Petition of Interest for a Student Employee Commission Resolution.”
It is progress our university makes that encourages us to assist future generations who wait to fulfill their right and duty to fill a seat, listen, take notes, offer their opinions, and participate in the classrooms of Ohio University! I think a resolution should be voted on to create the SEC.
Christopher Myers is an Ohio University alumnus who graduated in 2012.
