D**** S******:
Today, I was on crowd control for the Sheridan College Strike.
Being a part time employee, my role was to "fill in where needed" After being held up for about 20 minutes in the picket line, I made my way into the halls of the College to find hundreds, no wait, thousands, no
....it felt like millions of lost, confused students....
all milling about, longing to make eye contact with someone who looked like an authority figure that they could run their story past
....I am walking briskly with a clip board in hand....
a dead give away that I, am one to be approached to ask a question, or tell their story to...
kids wanted answers, mature students wanted someone to tell them it would all be all right...
second year students wanted to be re-assurred that they had done everything they could to get themselves organized in their classes in the middle of chaos....
those of us who were on campus were there all day...
me, from 7:30 until 5 answering questions non stop, directing, comforting, smiling and always stopping to find a face in the crowd that needed an answer. I had been in their shoes...
I had been a student in a line up at Sheridan over 20 years ago that needed someone to let me know, that everything would be all right...
I cried when they told me that my funding from OSAP would not be here when I needed it...
so I understood and I felt for the students who said..."what do you mean I can't get my money? What do I do now? I wanted to cry for them. I knew how they felt. I believe that both students and staff on hand did an amazing job today...
we were all patient...we helped them to do what ever they could do right now to get to where they needed to be and they made decisions to be patient with the process and go and do what they could do now and do what they needed to do later when things settled. Tomorrow is another day..but I'm sure there will be more of the same...new people...new emotions, challenging, confusing, but rewarding, to be sure.
D**** S******, Student Outreach.
For more information, contact:
Media Contact:
Jay Jackson
President, OPSEU Local 245
416-567-0719
vp_communications@opseu245.org
