Out d’Coup LIVE | Student Organizers from Kutztown University, East Stroudsburg University, and Temple Uninversity

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On tonight’s show, we’ll be talking with three students who are organizing because of and in spite of the global COVID-19 pandemic. 

Nick Thatcher is a political science and philosophy major at Kutztown University. Nick is one of the founding student organizers with the Healthy Campus Bill of Rights at Kutztown University. Nick was also the student leader of Kutztown’s chapter of Students for Bernie where he cut his teeth in organizing, phone-backing, and political action. Kutztown faculty and students held a protest against KU’s reopening plans in which students and faculty donned plague doctor masks. 

Kyle Nelson is organizing with East Stroudsburg's Student Solidarity Committee. Kyle is a senior at ESU from Philadelphia. He is the Events Chair for the African Student Association and the Public Relations Chair of the Political Science Club. Kyle is double majoring in political science and philosophy with the hopes of going to law school. He plans on continuing his advocacy through civil rights law, criminal defense law, and human rights law. The Student Solidarity Committee is organizing in solidarity with food service workers on campus who are in the middle of an organizing drive. The solidarity committee released what they are calling the SWORD Plan (Students and Workers Organizing for Real Defenses) which is a model for how we should be building solidarity in the wake of the pandemic. - JUST GOT CARD CHECK NEUTRALITY!!!

And, Jack Fletcher is the co-founder of the Student Coalition for Change at Temple University. Kyle is a junior pre-law major at Temple and the co-founder of the Temple Coalition for Change. If you’ve been following the news, you know that students and faculty at Temple have been on fire with their organizing against the administration’s decision to return to face-to-face classes this fall. Last week, students, faculty, parents, staff, and community members held a car caravan, urging the university’s administration to cancel their plans to return to face-to-face classes. Protests are now a pretty standard feature on campus.