New Organizing Staff

The AAUP welcomed three new members of the Department of Organizing and Services in recent months.

Shawn Fields, western lead organizer, is based in Las Vegas and will be working with and supporting advocacy and collective bargaining chapters in the West. Shawn was previously an organizer with United Academics of Oregon State University. She joined the labor movement as a member of the Graduate Employees Organization at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During her time as a graduate employee, she served as a steward chair, a bargaining team member, and president of her local and served on several national committees and task forces for the American Federation of Teachers.

Michael Magee, an organizer, will work with a focused group of advocacy chapters to plan and execute strategic issue-organizing campaigns. Based in Eugene, Oregon, Michael comes out of the graduate employee labor movement, having served as grievance chair, president, and lead negotiator for the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation at the University of Oregon. He is committed to the belief that just because an advocacy chapter isn’t a union doesn’t mean it shouldn’t act like a union, and he is excited to help faculty members and academic workers build power.

Marlan Maralit, lead organizer in the Department of Organizing and Services, is currently working to build faculty power on campuses in the Midwest. A second-generation Filipino American, he has worked as an organizer, educator, and facilitator with a range of labor and nonprofit organizations on issues ranging from immigrant rights to racial justice. His earliest exposure to movement work was shaped by the pioneers of the farmworker movement in California. Marlan currently lives in Northern Virginia and adheres to social-distancing guidelines by occasionally trout fishing in rural Virginia.