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Introduction

To those who aren’t well acquainted with her lively spirit, nineteen-year old University of Michigan sophomore, Marion Berger, has convictions and a level of involvement that seem overwhelming for her age. Aside from concentrating in Sustainable Urban Development and German, in her short time at Michigan, she’s already developed a track record of involvement with controversial groups and active organizations, such as the Detroit Partnership, the Occupy Ann Arbor Student Movement, and the Student Union of Michigan. Her involvement is evidence of her passion for social and environmental change, but her willingness to forgo her personal relationships, academics and the university administration to unionize students’, makes her a unique and determined activist on campus.

Personal Life and Background

“Almost too much of what I believe and strive for could break a vast majority of the relationships I have with people,” Berger sincerely says. “These thought and beliefs are central to who I am— as both a person and an activist.”

Berger attributes much of her activist spirit to her mother and often finds herself connecting strongly to activism centered around her community—Detroit. Through these connections--as both an activist and a Native Detroiter—Berger has been involved with and even recruited by organizations whose activism is centered around and in Detroit. The Detroit Partnership—an organization whose aim is to raise awareness and promote social justice through service-learning programs--recruited Berger last year and she accepted, hoping that her native-roots would prove beneficial to the organization.

“I quickly found out that there were many University of Michigan administrative hoops I had to jump though,” said Berger. She originally planned to work with Detroit Partnership as a gardener in a local community garden, but because of logistical reasons tutors in a charter school. She supports organizations like Detroit Partnership, but says that these organizations, and others at the University, face several administrative barriers that cripple them from reaching their full potential.

Among the obstacles facing student groups and student activists, the lack of student power and centralization is a major force in preventing groups from organizing. Berger has found a calling in working to increase their power.

Student Union of Michigan

Currently, Berger has positioned herself alongside twenty other students who firmly believe that University of Michigan Students’ need to unionize. Berger, who in part founded this student group, Student Union of Michigan, firmly asserts that in order to make the changes that are so vital to students’ current position on campus, students need to gain collective bargaining rights. If students were to unionize, Berger believes that they’d be able to have a greater say in all facets of University life—including tuition costs.

Quebec Student Movement

“We’re basing our model of unionizing after the Quebec student movement,” says Berger. The Quebec Student Movement was a collective of student unions that opposed tuition hikes by the Canadian Government in the Spring of 2012. Members of the movement began protesting in February of 2012, and by that September had gained an tuition freeze. “We want the University to live up to its standards,” said Berger. “But, how can the University live up the standard of being a public University when I’m paying nearly 30,000 dollars a year in-state tuition?”

“Students are not Regents, but that doesn’t mean that they should be devoid of a voice, especially when it comes to tuition cost,” Berger passionately says. With 30 percent of the student body coming from families that make more than 200,000 dollars a year, a drastic change from 18 percent in 2000, Berger makes note. “We’re a privileged university, but I see a void, a place where numbers don’t correlate. What if unionizing is a way to fill that void, to ask those questions, to challenge the gaps we see?”