F

or LSA junior Meaghan Wheat, working with 
high school students was something she has 
wanted to do since she was in high school 

herself. So despite being a college student, Wheat spends 
a lot of time with high school students and teachers. 
In fact, she has facilitated conversations and leads 
workshops on social identities with about 430 teachers 
and many more students.

“High school students are at such a formative period in their 

lives,” Wheat said. “You can see their light bulb moments.”

Wheat was first exposed to the impact of dialogue when 

she was 16 years old. By participating in Summer Youth 
Dialogues through the University of Michigan, Wheat 
joined high school students from across the Detroit area 
for a series of conversations about race and ethnicity in the 
context of the city’s social systems and injustices. These 
conversations inspired her to create a dialogue-based course 
in her own school, Novi High School, which encouraged 
dialogues about gender, race, sexual orientation, class and 
religion among students.

Five years later, Wheat is now a consultant for Novi High 

School and will be a facilitator for Summer Youth Dialogues.

“Creating those types of spaces and being passionate 

about that work has sustained me,” Wheat said. “I’m really 
interested in the student voice — always have been.”

About a year ago, Novi High School reached out to Wheat 

because of her interest in these issues. They hired her to 
facilitate conversations between high school students 
and teachers through workshops. For the faculty, these 
workshops serve as part of professional development. For 
the students, they create a bridge between students and 
teachers by addressing disconnects between student needs 
and how teachers accommodate them.

Last summer, Wheat led 16 workshops in the span of two 

days for K-12 teachers. The workshops focused on lower 
socioeconomic status and cognitive ability.

“Novi is an upper-middle class suburb of Detroit,” Wheat 

said. “But not everyone in that community has a high 
economic status, so for teachers, how do we properly navigate 
that for students?”

Wheat has also worked with the Martin Luther King 

Children and Youth Program, helping middle school and 
high school students enact change in their own hometowns. 
She was nominated for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit 
Award last semester. For Wheat, the most rewarding aspect of 
the nomination was getting to know other nominees.

“Meeting other people who do similar action-based and 

dialogue-based work was really fulfilling,” Wheat said.

Additionally, Wheat works with Metropolitan Youth 

Policy fellows to find out how the needs of young people in 
Detroit are, or are not, being met. The program serves to 
evaluate how well the city is supporting young people and 
whether young people feel they have a voice. Wheat has 
presented her findings at various conferences.

“We’re told we don’t know things that we know because 

of our age,” Wheat said. “I think that’s why I believe so much 
in students having a voice in their education system because 
we’re often left out of these conservations and these are 
conversations we deserve to be in.”

On campus, Wheat is also involved with Intergroup 

Relations, where she leads workshops on identities for student 
organizations and other groups. She is also a part of the group 
of students that is working to develop the Class and Inequality 
Studies minor.

Wheat is majoring in Political Science and Psychology, 

with a minor in Community Action Social Change. She has 
been pre-admitted to the School of Social Work, which she 
will attend after graduating next winter. In the future, Wheat 
wants to continue supporting student voices and social justice.

“I’m interested in both education and community organizing,” 

Wheat said. “So, I’m hoping to find a career path that does both, 
so maybe that’s consulting or maybe that’s teaching.”

3B

Copy Editors:

Elise Laarman

Finntan Storer

Wednesday, April 11, 2018 // The Statement 

 Meaghan 
 
 
 Wheat

BY SAYALI AMIN, 

DAILY STAFF REPORTER

“S

eeing inequality first hand and experiencing 
it, it brings your attention to these larger issues 
and it makes you sympathize with people who 

are going through different kinds of injustices,” Public Policy 
junior Lauren Schandevel said on her role as a student activist.

In just three years at the University of Michigan, 

Schandevel has created a money-saving survival guide, an 
organization dedicated to addressing the needs of low-income 
students and is in the process of creating a minor devoted to 
social class and inequality. Schandevel is a go-getter, not for 
herself, but for the community.

“I’m not a super ambitious person, in the sense that a lot of 

the work I do isn’t for my own gain,” she said. “I prefer to talk 
about it in the terms of the community and the specific policies 
that I’m tackling, and less about my role within facilitating that.”

Schandevel identifies as an activist by necessity. Having 

grown up in the Detroit suburb of Warren, a largely working-
class community, she is one of few students who come to the 
University from lower and middle-income backgrounds. At a 
university where 66 percent of the student population hails 
from the top 20 percent income bracket, Schandevel has had 
to navigate herself across situations that were uncommon in 
her hometown.

“A lot of the experiences that lower and middle-income 

students face kind of fall by the wayside when you have an 
overwhelmingly wealthy campus,” she said.

Schandevel 
created 
“Being 
Not-Rich 
at 
UM,” 
a 

comprehensive, crowd-sourced Google document on ways in 
which students and families can save money on campus. The 
document has gained widespread popularity with its large 
accumulation of student advice and comments.

“It’s been really cool seeing people coming together to 

write it because I feel like a lot of these resources are scattered 
throughout the University and it’s hard to find a place to 
centralize them,” she said.

As an expansion from the document, Schandevel and 

LSA junior Griffin St. Onge recently started the Michigan 
Affordability and Advocacy Coalition, a group dedicated 
to bettering the quality of life for low-income students 
by addressing issues ranging from renters’ rights, food 
insecurity and access to vaccines.

Seeing a need for resources that address individuals from 

lower socioeconomic statuses, Schandevel began to wonder 
why there wasn’t a space to study social class on campus. 
Together with LSA junior Meaghan Wheat, the two 
students gathered resources and support from University 
members to create a new minor called “Class & Inequality 
Studies.” The minor has yet to be approved, but according to 
Schandevel, it may be offered in fall 2019.

“Through the minor, I’ve talked to faculty who are really 

interested in the subject and don’t have a place to study it in 
a way that is interdisciplinary and intersectional,” she said. 
“When I’m gone, this minor will be a space for people to do 
that, something that will outlast me.”

Schandevel’s background has encouraged her to go into 

public service and politics, with the plan of helping others 
who have faced challenges similar to hers. She has even been 
nationally recognized for her work, earning a place as a finalist 
for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

Next year, Schandevel will graduate from the University 

and sees herself in the community. Schandevel said working 
alongside those whose passion for helping others will only 
amplify hers.

“Some of my biggest heroes are the community organizers 

and nonprofit managers,” she said. “People don’t even realize 
how much time, effort, energy and how much of themselves 
they put into it. That’s how you know they’re genuine and 
really care because they’re not working toward an elected 
office or a high paying job. They’re just doing the work because 
they think it’s the right thing to do.”

 Lauren 
 Schandevel

BY NATASHA PIETRUSCHKA, 

DAILY STAFF REPORTER

Amelia Cacchione/Daily

Amelia Cacchione/Daily