As “decision day” approaches for prospective Wolverines, many opt to take admitted-student tours and participate in Campus Day activities. Every year, admitted high school seniors have until May 1 to commit to their future college. Incoming members of the class of 2027, however, may have seen a new addition to the typical tour route: the ongoing Graduate Employees’ Organization strike. For tour guides and Campus Day leaders, navigating picket lines and protests has presented its fair share of challenges.
Public Policy senior Grace Watson has given multiple tours since the strike began. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, she said her tour groups often come across GEO picket lines as they walk around campus.
“The most obvious impact (of the strike) is simply the physical pickets on campus,” Watson said. “We take prospective students and their families around the main parts of Central Campus, including the Diag, the Michigan Union and Mason and Angell Halls, so at many of our stops the pickets are visible and sometimes we hear their chants.”
Campus Day leader Matthew Peal told The Michigan Daily he often finds himself taking minor detours on his campus tours to avoid any potential obstructions caused by the strike.
“It hasn’t impacted (the tours) as much as you might think,” Peal said. “Minor changes to our tour routes have taken place, but for Campus Day, since each of us doesn’t do the exact same tour route, it’s just minor changes. If we’re talking about academics, maybe we’ll go to a different building where it’d be a better space to do so.”
Watson said she now avoids taking her tours through the Michigan Union or any buildings where she has to cross a picket line due to ongoing GEO demonstrations.
“As a supporter of GEO, I do not feel comfortable crossing the picket line,” Watson said. “It’s also just not really possible to give information to families at the steps of the Union while the strikers are chanting, so I’ve had to forgo doing that stop entirely.”
Parents of prospective students have expressed concern about how the GEO strike has affected their children’s perception of campus culture. One incoming student’s mother — who has requested anonymity due to fear of harassment and will be referred to as Ann — recently attended a campus tour with her family. She said the tour guide declined to show them the building containing Mason, Angell, Tisch and Haven halls in order to avoid crossing a GEO picket line.
“The student who was giving (my family) a tour didn’t want to cross the line to enter a building to take them in as part of their tour because they didn’t want to be (looked down upon) by other students for crossing that line,” Ann said. “I was really surprised. This is a college tour, and then here (at the University) a student felt intimidated and didn’t want to cross the line.”
Some tour guides have also incorporated the strike into the information they provide to potential students and their parents. Watson said she informs her tour groups about the strike and GEO’s demands at the start of each tour.
“I always give my tours a heads up that we will be encountering striking graduate students, and explain briefly their ask for a livable wage, among other measures,” Watson said.
While Ann said her family didn’t interact directly with GEO, she viewed GEO picketing during campus tours as a negative experience.
“I felt that (GEO was) only thinking about themselves,” Ann said. “This was during a time when kids are on spring break, so they’re touring different universities, (and) they had to be aware of that. I felt … that this was not going to come across as a positive, because when I talked to other parents and I shared my experience, they were shocked that (this) was going on.”
Watson said she and other tour guides have occasionally experienced GEO members yelling at or approaching tour groups, sometimes aggressively.
“While I support GEO and their platform, and thus do not wish to cross picket lines, myself and other guides have encountered picketers who have been aggressive, shouting loudly in families’ faces to not come to (the University),” Watson said.
In an interview with The Daily, GEO vice president Ember McCoy said she isn’t aware of any aggressive actions taken by picketers and instead has experienced the opposite. She said she has seen parents joining picket lines and expressing support to graduate students on strike.
“We’ve had parents join our picket lines that I’ve seen,” McCoy said. “We’ve had multiple prospective (undergraduate students) reach out and say they thought it was really cool to see the (graduate) students picketing. I had a parent come up to me and say they’re from New York City and so they’re very used to seeing people on the picket lines. So … we’ve only heard positive interactions with the picket lines and parents being supportive of what we’re out here doing.”
McCoy said GEO does “informational pickets,” where they provide information to undergraduate students and tour groups as they walk by. She said the picketers are happy to explain to prospective students and parents on tours why GEO.
“We’re doing informational pickets, so explaining why we’re on strike (and) why we’re out here,” McCoy said. “I think one important statistic that we say sometimes for the tours is that one semester of out-of-state tuition for one student is more money than graduate students get paid in an entire year.”
Though Watson said many guides provide resources to educate themselves on the strike during their tours, she said she is frustrated by some of the encounters she has had with GEO members while conducting campus tours.
“I understand GEO’s frustration, but I know that myself and my fellow guides have been frustrated by the few instances in which the strikers have been very in-the-face of tours, which are composed of young high school students who have little-to-no background on these issues,” Watson said. “While I appreciate and encourage GEO strikers to hand out flyers to my tour groups or vocalize general information as we walk through campus, I haven’t appreciated the aggressive nature myself and other guides have sometimes encountered.”
Daily Staff Reporter Joshua Nicholson can be reached at joshuni@umich.edu. Daily News Contributor Grace Lim can be reached at gracelim@umich.edu.