Labor Studies B.A. student Joseph Newswander is this year’s Valedictorian and will speak at Commencement on May 28. Joseph has not only excelled academically, but also served on the Student Union steering committee and as vice chair for senior college affairs in the University Student Senate — SLU’s first participant in the CUNY-wide body. He also holds a job at 1199SEIU Training and Employment Funds, where he began as an intern through SLU’s Union Semester program. Joseph grew up in northern Utah and became advocacy- and activism-oriented in 2018 when he co-organized a demonstration at his public high school following the school shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida.
SLU Chronicle: What stands out in your studies and experiences here?
Joseph Newswander: What stands out is the small classes with incredible professors leading discussions in a class with a wide variety of ages, perspectives, and politics in the realm of Labor and Urban Studies.
How do you see yourself using your SLU education in the future?
The goal is to use the context, framework, and tools from my degree to challenge assumptions about the inevitability of the status quo that distance organizations from their mission or maximum good. In other words, I am using and plan to use my education to push the right buttons to create change. Whether further educational pursuits, like law, are the best way to do that, is still up in the air.
You grew up in Utah. What led you to New York and SLU?
I knew I wanted to get out of Utah as soon as I could. I looked for gap-year programs to build experience in a meaningful cause. I landed on AmeriCorps City Year, and New York City was my top choice as it was the most different from where I grew up and places I’d visited. The diversity, energy, and timeless spirit drew me in, and kept me here past the honeymoon phase.
Why did you get involved in SLU Student Union and the University Student Senate?
I was organized into it, you could say. Friends and comrades I developed relationships with through class, and through Union Semester, had feedback on how students might feel more involved and holistically considered from the jump at SLU. Our initiatives aligned enough to run a slate of sorts for the SLU Student Union. As an extension of student leadership at the CUNY-wide level, Student Senate resonated with me on their free Metrocard campaign and their alliances with other organizations. The people are really passionate and hardworking as well, and it felt like a good place to be to amplify the unique student voice of someone working full time while at school full time, like myself and many of my classmates.
What did you achieve through your student government experience?
Inherently, student leadership is a representational role. As such I don’t really look at anything accomplished in my tenure as my accomplishment, or even my leadership team’s. The student voices drive the initiatives, and my greatest regret is that it was difficult to dedicate enough time between school, work, and other responsibilities.
Tell us about your job at 1199SEIU Training and Employment Funds.
It’s super meaningful to me because healthcare education is something that has affected my own family and my own life. For example, I know that the services we offer could have been instrumental in my mom’s journey from CNA (certified nursing assistant) onward. Union Semester and the placement through SLU was truly transformational, both in the people I met and what I learned.
Do you have any favorite Labor Studies-related media to recommend?
For the purpose of brevity, I’ll share two. The first is unionjobs.com. I didn’t know about it when I first started here. When I discovered it by another student’s referral, it broadened the scope of my goals and my hope for how many jobs exist that are aimed toward a similar mission: to advocate for working people.
Second, I was recently rewatching what was my favorite movie as a kid, the Disney musical Newsies. Based loosely on the newsboys’ strike of 1899, it was my first exposure to collective action. As I look back on my life — with a newspaper delivery route as my first job when I was 13, acting in musical theater from age 6 to 16, moving to New York at 18, as well as my instinct to continually push back on the authoritarian maintenance of unfair conditions that led me to the labor movement — I can see it was an influential film. I deeply regret not being able to see it during its live run, and if you haven’t seen, it, I would recommend it. There are a lot of themes in labor it doesn’t touch, but it’s a catchy story about child labor militancy and sticking to your values as a leader in the face of temptation.