Working People: A podcast by, for, and about the working class today (now in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network). Working People is a podcast about working-class lives in 21st-century America. In every episode, you'll hear interviews with workers from around the country, from all walks of life. We'll talk about their life stories, their jobs, politics, and families, their joys and hopes and frustrations. Overall, Working People aims to share and celebrate the diverse stories of working-class people, to remind ourselves that our stories matter, and to build a sense of shared struggle and solidarity between workers around the country.
http://workingpeople.libsyn.com/website
episode 4: Lauren Schandevel
In this episode, we talk to Lauren Schandevel, a low-income student at the University of Michigan who grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Warren, Michigan. Lauren is a really remarkable person, and in our interview we chat about what it was like to grow up in her part of Macomb County, which always seems to crop up every election cycle whenever news outlets want to figure out what’s happening in the Rust Belt. We talk about Lauren’s experience moving back and forth between worlds, between her working-class home and the school she transferred to, where she took classes and hung out with people from wealthier backgrounds. We talk about school, family, friends, and the ecstatic and dismal pangs of adolescence.
We spend a fair amount of time talking about what it’s like being a low-income student attending a public university where the median family income for students' families is over three times what it is for families in Lauren's hometown. And we also talk at length about what Lauren has been doing to bring a class-based analysis to higher education, including starting "Being Not Rich at UM," an open-source guide for low-income students like herself who are trying to navigate college life at UM. We discuss what it means to Lauren, and what it means for class politics in higher education, that this guide went viral, drew national attention, and has even inspired students at other universities to author similar guides.
Additional links/info below...
- Being Not-Rich at UM guide
- Jennifer Meer, The Michigan Daily, "University ranks last in economic mobility and diversity among elite public colleges"
- Gregor Aisch, Larry Buchanan, Amanda Cox, & Kevin Quealy, The New York Times, "Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours"
- #RealCollege
- Christopher Newfield, Johns Hopkins University Press, The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities & How We Can Fix Them
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive)
- Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
- Cosmo, "No Gods, No Masters"
- Steve Combs, "Motown Rehearsal"
- Strong Suit, "Derby Day"