Cheyney University was founded in 1837, and was the first educational institution for black students and because of that holds a special place in history. Cheyney is also a PASSHE school. This means among other things, we are a public institution ran by the state. Our faculty, administrators, and staff are hired and maintained by the state. Our students depend upon the system and the resources it provides for us to get a quality education. By enrolling in a PASSHE state school we are placing our education in the hands of the state, with the hope that they will take it and mold us into successful students while providing with the best resources possible. In many ways they do, some of the teachers I’ve run into here at Cheyney have made a great impact on my life. They are my teachers, advisors, and in some cases my friends and they were provided to me by the state. I often have the opportunity to attend professional development activities that are funded through the state. I can say that at this point in time the cost of my education is balancing out, however it’s not completely adding up. While the teachers in my class rooms are molding my mind, they are doing so with outdated equipment. I sit in lecture halls with desks that have cracked seats and wobbly legs. Some classrooms have more advanced technology, however, most of the teachers in these classrooms have not been trained to use this equipment. I could go on and on listing the inequalities we face at Cheyney when compared to other PASSHE schools, but instead I want to explain the inequalities that bring us together. Right now the teachers whose instruction grants us our degrees are being taken for granted and cheated by our system. Despite the fact that without them the system would have no way to provide us the education we pay for, the state of Pennsylvania refuses to take their opinions into account while negotiating their new contract. Our teachers are currently in the middle of a fight for the quality of our education as well as arguing about their own worth and I think it’s time we stand with them. In addition to lowering the quality of the education we pay for by replacing full time professors with adjuncts the state also wanted to stop funding research and professional development opportunities. They wanted to increase our class sizes while also cutting our professor’s pay but still expect them to provide a quality education to every single student. They wanted to force more on campus students to take online classes rather than seeing their professors in person. The strike has ended but the struggle has not, the state and the union have reached a “temporary agreement” in terms of negotiating their new contract and all it involves. In an effort to preserve the education that we, the students receive, they agreed to a lowering of their salaries and benefits in exchange for the state eliminating most the changes they had presented them with in June. It is my hope that when this temporary agreement becomes permanent those salary and benefit cuts will be worked out as well to grant teachers the payment they deserve for creating the leaders of the future. Remember this the next time you’re about to make an excuse for something you haven’t done for class, roll your eyes at an assignment, or don’t show up at all; if the state had its way the quality of our education would’ve been decreased significantly – it was only the dedication that our teachers have for us that saved us.