The student-run No Cuts campaign spent every day on The Wall this week seeking support in its efforts to advocate for university workers.

The organization is trying to prevent worker layoffs, hourly cutbacks and loss of benefits for Vanderbilt's lowest-paid employees. While the university announced in an e-mail sent to the school Jan. 28 that preserving jobs and salaries is a top priority, No Cuts campaign leader Eli Feghali, a senior, said the group remains worried. If conditions worsen, he said, the most vulnerable employees could still be cut.

Mostly though, the movement is about solidarity, he said.

"We want to stress to the administration that preserving workers' livelihoods is a priority for students, so that if the university reaches the point of needing to decide where to make additional budget cuts, they are encouraged to look at areas other than cutting jobs, salaries or benefits," Feghali said.

"(The campaign) agrees wholeheartedly with Chancellor (Nicholas) Zeppos, who on numerous occasions has shared his desire to avoid worker layoffs and hour or benefit cutbacks," Feghali said, even though he said they continue to worry that non-faculty Vanderbilt employees are not a priority in the administration's efforts to avoid cutbacks.

The No Cuts campaign's worst fear is such additional cutbacks will include laying off non-faculty employees.

Despite the chancellor's best efforts to avoid layoffs, which include both hiring and - announced on Tuesday - salary freezes, the word "intention" has raised concern among some members of the student body. The chancellor has said he has the "intention to avoid major layoffs" - a careful choice of wording that gives the administration a loophole if they choose to reverse their "no-layoff" policy currently in place.

The precarious state of the economy has led members of the No Cuts campaign to believe the university will need to find additional ways to cut back funds in the upcoming year.

Director of Plant Operations Mark Petty, who oversees many of Vanderbilt's non-faculty employees, said it is difficult to know whether or not the freezes will affect his employees.

"Our employee salaries will be renegotiated next November when their contracts are renewed," Petty said. "So it is difficult to say whether or not they will be frozen. That isn't something we can know right now."

In a time of such uncertainty, the only thing the administration can say for certain is so far no one has been laid off. In light of this, the No Cuts campaign makes it clear they are not a reactionary campaign but more of a preventative measure that intends to promote student solidarity against any potential layoffs of low-wage workers, should the necessity for additional cutbacks arise in the coming year.

On the other hand, the current discrepancy between hours cut back from faculty and non-faculty employees have weakened the administration's mission to avoid layoffs and salary cutbacks.

Although the salary and hiring freeze policy was intended to apply to all staff members, non-faculty Vanderbilt employees have suffered hourly cutbacks regardless.

Despite this difference between how the faculty and non-faculty Vanderbilt employees have been treated, the chancellor and administration have said time and again that community is Vanderbilt's greatest asset.

Zeppos has praised our uniquely Vanderbilt sense of community and shared sacrifice and how we have bonded collectively to continue our mission and serve Vanderbilt.

To ensure the chancellor's words are not just empty promises, the No Cut campaign intends to remind Vanderbilt students as well as the administration that this "sense of community must include everyone, particularly the lowest paid workers," Feghali said.

Feghali said the No Cuts campaign is in no way accusing the chancellor or administration of being dishonest.

"We believe the administration is genuinely concerned with the plight of its workforce. Our intention with this campaign is to hold the administration accountable to its words and to the language of the Community Creed," Feghali said.