Episode 9: Tales of a Campus Housekeeper

Collegeland

You’ve probably heard the horror stories about college dorms: late nights, loud parties, and lots of questionable bathroom antics.
These campus living areas depend on the vital labor of housekeepers like Tracy Harter, who works at UNC Chapel Hill. She’s here to set the record straight about the students living in the dorms. Sure, they sometimes give her a run for her money. But for Tracy, it’s all about the care and connection: the students have her back, and she has theirs.
Tracy has long participated in her local union and was an outspoken advocate for her fellow housekeepers at the start of the pandemic, when cleaning workers were given limited personal protective equipment to work in increasingly unsafe conditions. In 2019, she also took part in the “Silent Sam” protests on UNC campus, which culminated in the toppling of a Confederate statue. Tracy shares these stories and describes the day-to-day work of being a campus housekeeper—including some of the more, shall we say, memorable days on the job.
To wrap things up, co-hosts Nan and Lisa reminisce about their own time in the dorms and offer some Extra Credit reading and viewing about cleaning workers.
About our guest
Tracy Harter is a housekeeper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of UE Local 150, the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union.
Extra Credit
Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadow of Affluence by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (University of California Press, 2007)
Justice for Janitors: A Story of Hope, Courage, and Triumph short documentary film by SEIU (2014)
Follow Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, on Twitter (@aijenpoo)
Produced and edited by Richelle Wilson
Theme music by Josh Wilson
Show cover art by Margaux Parker
Episode cover art by Lena Helfinger
A special thanks to Wisconsin Humanities for their support.
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