Students at Syracuse University face a persistent reality: preparing for a future career means bracing to enter a workplace crippled by inequality and other unfortunate adversities.

This was the focus of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s visit to SU last week, where she outlined a five-point plan aiming to confront obstacles relating to the workplace. Her contention does not solely concern the modern female perspective. Instead, Gillibrand is rightfully focusing on the changing dynamic of the modern American working family.

Gillibrand supports raising the minimum wage considerably, implementing better paid leave legislation, making outside-the-home child care more feasible and establishing an enhanced pre-K system.

Here at SU, several of those issues are also acknowledged.

The David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics operates a child care service for SU students and faculty, and Elizabeth Liddy, dean of the School of Information Studies, has proposed opening an additional child care center. However, the Falk facility is understaffed and the responsibility of providing supplemental university-wide child care should not fall to one dean or college.

Adequate child care is fundamental in a society where being well-educated and employed are the keys to success. To aid in combating the lack of child care available, Hendricks Chapel should use its resources to join Liddy and Falk in their efforts to make higher education and employment more accessible for families with young children.

For students, becoming educated on not only future career paths, but also what the workplace landscape looks like is a necessary feat. Organizations like the Women Leadership Initiative Steering Committee and forums like Elect Her — coming to campus this spring — work to empower college women and give them a voice in shaping the working world they are on the brink of entering.

Though these are both admirable ways of confronting issues of workplace inequality, their efforts fail to connect with the campus community in need of workplace education aside from gender.

The Student Association could help mend this discrepancy by hosting a forum in which members of the campus community address today’s workplace problems and explain how to become part of their resolve in the future.

Managing family, work and education has become a balancing act in modern day America. However, this balance can be stabilized in the future with active support for family-minded legislative and institutional changes.

Published on January 22, 2014 at 2:33 am

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