T

he 
seemingly 
everlasting 

build-up to the Fall 2020 se-

mester made me anxious 

about where I would live. My mind raced 

with questions as I was stuck in a state of 

limbo, full of unknowns. The hope that I 

would get to spend my senior year of col-

lege on a pandemic-free campus quickly 

dwindled and instead morphed into wor-

ry. 

Should I give up my lease? Is it safe to 

move back? What seemed to be the safest 

option was not necessarily the most finan-

cially sound. Amid deciding, I, and many 

other students, waited eagerly to see what 

the University of Michigan’s plan would 

be. 

As a former University-employed resi-

dent advisor for the last one and a half 

years, my mind immediately wondered 

what the intended precautions would be 

to ensure safe on-campus housing. My 

previous experiences with University 

Housing made me feel like there would 

be a disaster waiting for Residential Staff 

when they arrived for their training. Sure 

enough, when I checked on my peers 

during the August ResStaff training, they 

were already starting to get concerned. 

It seemed as if Housing had not come up 

with an adequate plan to keep R.A.s and 

residents safe during these unpredictable 

times. Rumors buzzed about facilities be-

ing understaffed, and supervisors did not 

have answers to questions surrounding 

safety precautions. 

This storm leading up the R.A. strike in 

early September was an explosion of ten-

sion that existed even before the pandem-

ic. Upper-level housing, which refers to 

any full-time staff working in the Housing 

department above the level of Hall Direc-

tor, and R.A.s may have always had a hard 

time finding common ground, but this 

time, this tension could cost the health 

and possibly the lives of Housing students 

and staff.

My personal animosity toward upper-

level housing staff began from the moment 

of signing our contract called the Letter 

of Appointment, referred to as the L.O.A. 

Every ResStaff member is tied to this 

contract during their time as R.A.s. Any 

deviation from the included provisions 

results in disciplinary actions consisting 

of anything from a conversation with the 

hall directors — who are the R.A.s’ direct 

supervisors — or termination, depending 

on the severity of the behavior. 

I remember when I first walked into 

the West Quad Residence Hall Multipur-

pose Room, seeing my future fellow staff 

members seated together in a circle. I was 
bright-eyed and eager to start making an 

impact on the incoming class. As we start-

ed reading through our contract, a feeling 

of uneasiness settled into my stomach. I 

felt on edge about signing an agreement 

that I had just gotten without much time 

to think. There is no room for negotia-

tion of the contract — it is an all or noth-

ing deal. And even though we were able to 

bring our concerns to our supervisors, we 

knew we had to agree to the L.O.A. or be 

replaced by someone who would. 

While a lot of the L.O.A. is mundane de-

tailing of hours and responsibilities, one of 

the more gut-wrenching clauses reads:

“I will not participate in discussions 

or activities that in any way disparage my 

colleagues or supervisors or undermine 

their authority with residents. I will show 

public support for all ResStaff decisions 

and University or Housing policies. If I 

disagree with a policy or decision, I will 

discuss it respectfully with my supervi-

sors, but will continue to enforce the poli-

cy unless directed otherwise.” 

As a journalist, it felt against my ethical 

code to agree to this. As a student, I felt as 

if I should be able to take my grievances 

with Housing elsewhere if I feel like I am 

not being heard. No change comes without 

criticism and a little bit of pressure. I am 

someone who likes to use my voice when I 

see something is wrong. To me, this came 

across as an effort to silence staff, keeping 

all issues handled quietly within Housing.

Inevitably, the clause instilled in me an 

immediate fear and distrust of upper-level 

housing. Would I lose my room and board 

just because I disparaged the good name 

of Housing? Why did they want me to hide 

my criticisms? What was I getting myself 

into? This sentiment lingered throughout 

my time as a staff member, and I recently 

learned that I was not alone in feeling this 

way. 

During the pandemic and the strike, 

the aforementioned clause was a particu-
lar point of contention, and worsened the 

fear of retaliation. I spoke to a current R.A., 

who asked to remain anonymous with fear 

of retaliation from the University, over the 

phone about this ongoing battle. In this ar-

ticle, they will be referred to as Sam. 

“Here we are now, with a bunch of le-

gitimate concerns that aren’t being ade-

quately addressed by Housing, and yet our 

contract says we can’t talk to anyone about 

this but Housing,” they said. “We felt very 

trapped by that.”

This conflict grows even more complex 

when we acknowledge that R.A.s exist in 

a gray area, where we are both students 

and staff members of the University. And 

while I felt more like a student than a Uni-

versity employee, as soon as I left the con-

fines of my room, I had to be there for my 

residents. In everyday life, there weren’t 

distinct lines drawn between my two roles. 

This ambiguity has proven to be an-

other point of contention worsened by the 

pandemic. As a part of the strike agree-

ment, R.A.s were given priority for CO-

VID-19 testing; however, there was some 

confusion as to the logistics of this because 

of R.A.s’ unique standing. Sam described 

this tension and the obstacles it created.

“There’s a question on there that says: 

‘What is your primary role in the Univer-

sity? Student, staff, faculty,’ and most of us 

put: ‘student,’” they explained. “How are 

(upper-level Housing) going to recognize 

that we are supposed to be getting prior-

ity as ResStaff when, primarily, we’re stu-

dents here?”

This hybrid position has also caused is-

sues in the past, as we struggled to put our 

academics, mental health and well-being 

first, which sometimes interfered with my 

relationships with my supervisors. I got 

a taste of this conflict before I officially 

started my position as an R.A. 

Before starting the role, all R.A.s must 

take and pass a class called ALA 421 

where we learn to have open discussions 

about identity and analyze how our biases 

influence our interactions with others. 

Prospective R.A.s sign up for a section of 

ALA 421 at the beginning of a winter se-

mester, after they’ve registered for aca-

demic classes. Around the same time I 

was meant to choose my ALA section, I 

was cast in MUSKET’s production of “In 

the Heights.” I was struggling to find an 

ALA class that fit into both my class and 

rehearsal schedule. 

The Housing administrator suggested 

that I choose between my love of perform-

ing and the R.A. job. She explained that 

the job meant I needed to make substan-

tial sacrifices, refusing to acknowledge my 

role as a student who needs to engage in 

extracurriculars and take time to do what 

I love. The administrator told me that she 

gave up dancing for her own career. But 

being an R.A. is not a career; it is, rather, a 

role with some benefits. In fact, many stu-

dents need to have a job on top of ResStaff, 

as they are not getting a salary as an R.A.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
15 — Wednesday, October 14, 2020 
statement

THE R.A. STRIKE WAS A 
LONG TIME COMING

ISABELLE HASSLUND,
STATEMENT DEPUTY EDITOR

R

ich students don’t like to talk 

about money. It can be embar-

rassing to express the amount of 

money in your bank account, especially when 

it’s money your parents wire to you. And it’s 

easy to avoid conversation about something 

you don’t think of much. 

But as a lower-income student, I think 

about money during almost all of my daily ac-

tions. When I wake up in the morning, I eat 

one egg instead of two to save on groceries. 

I rummage through Goodwill, searching for 

knockoffs of the fashions I see on Instagram, 

a practice I have perfected since middle 

school. My friends ask me if I want to go out 

to eat and I triple check my funds, indulging 

in some quick budgeting to see if I can afford 

dinner at a restaurant. 

I’m tired of not talking about money to 

make my wealthier friends more comfort-

able. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel 

resentment towards them, as they tiptoe 

around the topic due to a lack of urgency. I’ve 

had a job for the last nine years of my life — 

since I was 12 years old — and I can’t fathom 

how some of them still don’t have jobs now. I 

need to work to pay my rent and quite hon-

estly, it makes me angry that they don’t have 

to as well. 

Why does no one else talk about this?

I’m starting to realize that it’s because 

most of the people at this university come 

from financially affluent households. And for 

the most part, rich people don’t like to talk 

about how rich they are. 

Worrying about how to pay my rent has 

been an issue since I moved out of my par-

ents’ house in 2017
. My parents no longer sub-

sidized my living costs, and housing in Ann 

Arbor is notoriously expensive. As a full-time 

yet financially independent college student, I 

often face difficulty in figuring out how to af-

ford it. Without friends around me who deal 

with the same obstacles, I often feel like I’m 

alone in my struggles. I’ve been feeling it a lot 

recently after early-voting “yes” on Proposal 

C , which is on the November 2020 Ballot. 

This proposal is asking voters to approve 

a new $1 million tax to fund construction, 

maintenance and acquisition of affordable 

housing units for low-income individuals.

When talking about this proposal with my 

rich friends, I can tell they don’t quite realize 

just how dire the approval of this proposal is 

for low-income individuals like myself. When 

I asked my friend and fellow low-income stu-

dent Amaya Farrell, a junior in the School of 

Kinesiology, if she was familiar with the pro-

posal she said, “My whole life is my familiar-

ity with the proposal.”

Farrell is registered to vote in Wyandotte 

County, which subsequently means she can’t 

vote ‘yes’ on this Washtenaw County approval. 
However, she said that if she could she “would 

vote yes because of the segregation that in-

come creates in Washtenaw County, specifi-

cally in the Ann Arbor area. Having affordable 

and equitable housing to individuals that can 

otherwise not afford their rent is crucial to di-

versity, equity and inclusion efforts made by 

the city.”

Talking about our shared low-income fa-

milial upbringings is what has bonded me 

with Amaya since I met her in the summer of 

2020. As with most of my low-income friends, 

lamenting about our frustrations with money 

is what has brought us closer together. 

Farrell was raised by her grandparents be-

cause her mother was in the military and her 

father was out of the picture. “I try not to ask 

(my grandparents) for anything now because 

I feel like I took a huge burden off of them by 

moving out,” Farrell said. 

This is not the first time Farrell has felt a 

sense of economic instability — it’s a feeling 

she’s experienced since she was young.

“We were living paycheck to paycheck,” 

she explained about her upbringing. “We were 

evicted once. There were just a lot of hard-

ships.”

I felt a sense of myself when listening to 

her words. I rarely meet people at the Uni-

versity of Michigan with a similar familial 

experience as my own, and it was comfort-

ing to know that I wasn’t entirely alone. Re-

lying on my low-income friends for support 

in the many challenges we face regarding the 

economic disadvantage between us and our 

high-income peers has been incredibly help-

ful. And though there are a significant num-

ber of studies regarding this topic, there is 

not a lot of action being taken to prevent this, 

despite our knowledge that this is a problem.

The facets of this reality far surpass solely 

the economic implications. Hours other stu-

dents may spend studying are the hours I 

spend working tirelessly to pay my rent, yet 

I still beat myself up when I don’t perform 

as well as my wealthier peers in school. This 

was an issue I knew I’d face going into my 

freshman year of college, yet there were few 

resources to help me prepare for what would 

become a major stressor in my college life. 

To afford the University of Michigan I 

applied for over 30 different scholarships. I 

was granted 20 of them, including the Michi-

gan Competitive Grant. I reapply to some of 

these scholarships each year and some ex-

tend through all four years of schooling. It 

is through these scholarships that I was able 

to afford my spot in Bursley Residence Hall 

my freshman year. For sophomore year, I ap-

plied to live in the Inter-Cooperative Council 

(ICC) because it was the cheapest housing 

option I was aware of at the time. It certainly 

wasn’t my first housing choice. 

I had a few friends offer for me to live at 

their house, but most of the prices they were 

mentioning were $850 or more a month, not 

including utilities, in the Kerrytown area of 

Ann Arbor. It agitated me that they could 

mention rent so casually. It was almost as 

if they didn’t have to think twice about it — 

probably because they didn’t. 

There was absolutely no way I could af-

ford the price of rent they were offering me, 

so I settled for the slightly-messy, overly 

populated cooperative house on South Cam-

pus. I loved living there, but I felt a sense of 

shame when I’d bring my upper-class friends 

over because my house wasn’t as nice as their 

high-rise apartments. 

I distinctly remember one of them com-

menting on how dirty my house was com-

pared to theirs. We were walking to my bed-

room when they passed my kitchen, rife with 

unwashed dishes and leftover food on the 

counters. “Wow, I can’t believe you live like 

this,” they had said. I couldn’t help but think: 

Well, if I could afford to live in a cleaner envi-

ronment, I would. I hated this feeling of em-

barrassment, but it’s something I have grown 

all too accustomed to as a lower-income 

student. Farrell explained experiencing the 

same feeling here on campus. 

“It wasn’t until my second semester fresh-

man year until I started to really see it (the 

income disparity on campus),” Farrell said. “I 

was surrounded by people who could afford 

so many things on the drop of a hat.” 

This year, with the thoughtful maneu-

vering of my friends, I am paying incredibly 

cheap rent in a house in Kerrytown. Yet, I 

still have to work at least 15 hours a week to 

pay my rent, which is minor compared to 

the three jobs I worked my sophomore year. 

Then, there were weeks when I was clock-

ing in 40 hours between jobs in order to af-

ford rent as well as groceries, phone bills and 

school supplies. Now, I babysit two kids for 

$20 an hour, but the frustration toward my 

peers who don’t work at all still persists. Ev-

ery time I pay my rent for the month, I feel 

like I should get some type of award, or at 

least a congratulations.

I don’t think I’ve ever not thought twice 

about any purchase I’ve made. Nor do I think 

I ever will. And as difficult as it is, I do take an 

immense amount of pride in the fact that I am 

entirely independent of my parents, much like 

Farrell and other low-income students. This is 

a huge feat, one that I will never let anyone or 

myself diminish. It’s a significant obstacle and 

it’s not something we get praised for enough. 

So, if you’re like me and the struggle to pay 

your rent is consistent, then I offer you this: 

Congratulations. You did it. Affordable hous-

ing is a fight that I and many other low-income 

people have been grappling with our entire 

lives. I feel a sense of hope with proposals like 

Proposal C surfacing on our ballots: hope for a 

future when paying my rent isn’t a tireless bat-

tle, a future when a call from my landlord isn’t 

something to fear and a future when all low-

income people do not feel the overwhelming 

burden of finding a safe, supported home.

ILLUSTRATIONS
BY EILEEN KELLY

CONGRATULATIONS: YOU 
PAID YOUR RENT!

ALIX CURNOW,
STATEMENT COLUMNIST

Read more at 
 
MichiganDaily.com

