Officers
Chynna Haas, President
Biography by Cassandra Colson
When Chynna Haas was a high school senior at Orfordville-Parkview High School, a small, rural Wisconsin high school, she needed to crunch some numbers—numbers that would ultimately determine whether her dream of attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison could be fulfilled.
Tuition, housing, books, financial aid and scholarships all found their way into the spreadsheets, but they were accompanied by more pressing numerical concerns—the amount of hours Haas could physically work without wearing herself out and the amount of jobs she would need to maintain that summer to ratchet up enough funds to make her dream of a UW-Madison education a reality.
She weighed the conversation with her parents and sat down to talk with them about making her dream become a reality because, honestly, she couldn’t afford Madison. But, she and her parents sat down and talked about what sacrifices would have to be made, how much savings she had and how much she could physically work during the summer to accomplish her goal of a UW-Madison education.
Following that conversation, Haas decided that she needed to take on two jobs for the summer before her freshman year at UW. She worked 40 hours a week at a temporary job and an additional 20 hours a week at a local Pizza Hut, leaving Haas working and on the road for almost 12 hours a day because these two positions were in separate cities near her hometown.
Unlike many of her counterparts at UW-Madison, Haas’ parents both work manual labor jobs—her mother as a newspaper carrier and a stockperson at Menard’s and her father as a worker in a local factory. While her mother completed a full associate’s degree and her father a partial one, neither have received a bachelor’s degree: Haas is not only a working-class student, but a first-generation one as well.
Despite frequently feeling ostracized on a financial and social level, Haas remains determined to stay on campus and obtain a bachelor’s degree even though she has considered withdrawing from the university several times. She is currently double majoring in Communication Arts and Women’s Studies, with a certificate in American Indian Studies.
Because of her experience as a rural Wisconsinite, residing in a manufacturing community plagued by job loss, and pride in her working-class roots, Haas leads the newly founded Working Class Student Union and strives to provide a place where working class students and their allies can advocate for themselves and exhibit similar pride in themselves, their families, and their accomplishments.
Jerid Dickman, Finance Secretary
Advisors to the Officers
Beth Wetzel, Resource Volunteer
My name is Beth, and I am the resource volunteer of WCSU. I am a senior, and I am studying psychology and social work. I joined WCSU because I identify as a student from a working class background and experience many of the struggles that other working class students face on this and other campuses, including coming up with money for tuition, housing, and other school-related expenses. However, one of the biggest challenges I face on campus is the stigma of coming from a working class background. Not only have I experienced first-hand the elitist, classist attitude of some UW administrators and students, but I also feel a constant pressure from the university in general to blend in and mask this part of my identity. My goal as a member of WCSU is to help other working class students embrace this part of their identities, as well as to advocate on behalf of these students and other working class people in our community and beyond.