Student MEA delegates get first taste of NEA RA
CMU’s Molly Preston of Petoskey talks about how the RA relates to her goal of being a high school social studies teacher.
WASHINGTON, July 3, 2008 — Some of the youngest delegates at the RA have also been here in Washington the longest.
MEA’s five Student NEA delegates arrived in D.C. June 26 for the NEA Student Leadership Conference and continued on to attend the RA itself. They are gaining valuable knowledge and experience for the future.
“Coming here and learning the way things happen makes me feel like I really can make a difference,” said Amanda King, a Central Michigan University student from Muskegon.
Between the opportunities to learn about education and association issues at the student conference, and to serve the community through the Outreach to Teach program [LINK], Michigan’s student delegates are gaining lots of valuable experience and insight. They expressed appreciation to all the other delegates who’ve been so helpful and welcoming, especially the retired delegates.
CMU's Amanda King helps out by holding up a caucus position sign.
“Outreach to Teach gives us the chance to work with retired members from across the country in addition to our fellow students,” said Student MEA chairperson Tracy Szutkowski, an MSU student from Warren. “It’s interesting to get their thoughts on issues and their experiences.”
MEA President Iris Salters believes the students’ presence at the RA helps build up their skills as well as the association’s strength.
“The students attending the RA bring a different perspective to our conversation, broadening the debate across generations,” Salters said. “And the student delegates get a real view of the problems and concerns – the thoughts and the hopes – of educators that they wouldn’t have been exposed to until they started working.”
On the RA floor, the student delegates have been doing their part, helping to carry position and message signs around the delegation and representing the student program nationally in the discussions on the issues.
MSU’s Szutkowski, who plans on attending graduate school for education policy, thought the RA would be a good place to learn more about the issues she’ll be studying. “It’s good to see how we view these important issues as an association.”
“We get to have a say in what’s going on,” added MSU’s Antoinette Bogdanski of Chelsea. “We’re a big part of this RA… it’s exciting.”
Michigan’s student delegates joined their peers from across the U.S. in wearing the “Got Tuition?” T-shirts to raise the level of conversation around the issue of college affordability – and it’s working, judging from the number of questions the students have been asked about their shirts on the street. (Visit www.gottuition.org for more.)