From the President: Our Vision for Higher Education

These are dangerous times for higher education. Right-wing activists in many states are intent on demonizing faculty, banning certain subjects and books, and starving colleges and universities of resources. On the federal level, a congressional committee has grilled university presidents and other educators, attacking them for defending freedom of expression on campus. This follows on decades of disinvestment by federal and state governments that has worsened conditions for students, workers, and communities. The Republican vice presidential candidate has char­acterized the professoriate as “the enemy” and vowed to follow in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán, who seized control of Hungary’s univer­sities in order to enforce right-wing ideology and silence his critics.

With the other members of my slate, I ran for AAUP office with one major commitment: to orga­nize, build power, and unite the higher education sector. You have given us a clear mandate to make this organization a fighting union. And we are ready.

We envision a system of higher education that is fully resourced and operated for the common good— where students don’t accumulate debt, workers are treated with dignity, and our colleges and univer­sities are engines of social mobility, progress, democracy, and innova­tion. To make this vision a reality, we must organize on many fronts.

Collective bargaining is one important front in this fight. Across the country, unionized chapters are the first line of defense against attacks on higher education and fight daily to win improvements in compensation, policies affecting academic freedom, and students’ learning conditions. That’s why we are launching a higher education organizing institute that will put the tools to build collective power in our members’ hands. In collabora­tion with Organizing for Power, a project built by recently deceased labor visionary Jane McAlevey, we will be offering all AAUP members the tools to organize their col­leagues and build power on their campuses. Our goal is to train one thousand AAUP members this academic year and then sign up ten thousand new members into our existing chapters in 2025. This pro­gram is meant for advocacy as well as collective bargaining chapters— we need to build power on every campus, and the AAUP will work with any chapter that wants to be a part of this program.

Expanding access to collective bargaining is also an important front. Faculty collective bargaining rights in the public sector vary by state. At my institution, Rutgers University, the full-time faculty voted in 1970 to unionize under New Jersey state labor law. Over time, we were joined by gradu­ate student employees, part-time lecturers, postdoctoral associates, full-time non-tenure-track faculty members, and Equal Opportunity Fund counselors to build a powerful and democratic organization. Most recently, we built a coalition with adjunct faculty as well as medical researchers to forge an alliance of all nine thousand academic work­ers on Rutgers’s three campuses. Higher education workers in other states have farther to go. In some states, where an expansion of collective bargaining rights is politi­cally feasible, the AAUP and AFT are supporting faculty efforts to win legal protections for collective bargaining.

Where collective bargaining is not an option now, we need to build power outside of that structure. Many AAUP advocacy chapters have been at the fore­front of defending the right to free expression over the past year, despite lacking union protections. Leaders of the AAUP/AFT Local 6741—which includes all members of the AAUP not represented by a union chapter—have met with national AAUP and AFT leaders to lay out their vision for moving forward. I am eager to support this effort and provide necessary resources to expand and strengthen membership across the board.

Finally, as the only union in this country that solely represents workers in higher education, it is incumbent upon the AAUP to forge a national vision for the future of the sector and to fight to bring that vision to life. As I write this, we still have ahead of us a presidential election that will be very consequential for labor and for higher education. Last month, in partnership with more than ten international unions, we presented the Harris campaign with our vision for this country’s higher education system. The AAUP led this unprecedented labor coalition. Together, we’re calling for full federal funding of public higher education, expanded access to higher education, and real job security for all workers in the sec­tor, among other priorities.

We have a lot of work in front of us. We’re excited to get started and glad to have you in the fight with us!