Welcome to Wildcat Organizer School!

Our Story

The Wildcat Organizer School is the movement training department of Strike University. We seek to expand the capacity and build the power of social movements - including the COLA movement - by laying an infrastructure of skill-building, leadership development, and deep reflection.

We train the next generation of labor and union activists. At the end of 2019, University of California, Santa Cruz wildcat strikers catalyzed a wave of activism that brought many first time organizers to the picket line across the University of California system. Riding that wave of momentum and channeling it into sustainable organization, the Wildcat Organizer School transforms political newcomers into seasoned trainers themselves.

We do this in several ways: first, through a self-guided training program with three steps (see below for more on the introductory, action, and leadership development levels) with new live trainings each week and an archive of recorded trainings. Secondly, we offer ongoing strategic capacity building for the COLA movement through our weekly “intercampus strategy roundtables”. We also scaffold more sustained and sustainable learning through a 6-week training program for a cohort of intercampus COLA organizers. Each successive cohort of graduate workers and undergraduate activists who go through our program leaves with the skillset to organize their own campaigns and with a deeper understanding of their individual and collective power.

Noticing that organizing and skillbuilding trainings often hide behind the paywall of the nonprofit industrial complex, we are committed to fully accessible and free training. We acknowledge that workers, parents, and disabled people cannot always make live trainings, so. nNearly all of our trainings are recorded and available with captions for asynchronous viewing.

Our Offerings

Self Guided Training

In our self-guided training program, you will be welcomed into the movement (1), supported in taking action (2), and given the chance to develop your leadership (3) through both live and recorded webinars. (see below)

“Movement Builders Cohort” Intercampus Organizing Training (past)

We are also currently recruiting for a 6-week training program for graduate student organizers across the UC system. Each week, we'll cover a range of organizing skills, covering topics such as movement culture, story, strategy, team structure, relational organizing and recruitment, facilitation, and leadership. In addition to receiving the training, participants will build their organizing skills through a small activity each week and will grow through coaching and community reflection with other cohort members and the training team. For more information, check out our slides here.

We’re searching for UC COLA campaign graduate worker organizers who are able to commit four hours a week over the next six weeks to this training. If you are excited about this and want to commit to joining our cohort, here is our onboarding form. Fill it out by Monday, May 11th and we’ll be in touch!

Intercampus Strategy Roundtables

As we reassess strategy and tactics for the COLA movement in times of COVID, the Wildcat Organizer School dept of Strike University wants to create an intercampus space for strategizing - apart from the urgencies of campus politics, decision-making, general assemb

We base our themes on the steps outlined in a campaign planning training given for the Wildcat Organizer School by Jack Zhou: values & visions, getting the lay of the land, power-mapping your targets, mapping community resources, campaign planning & tactics, messaging, coalition building & solidarity, and evaluating success.