Organizing the organizers: Summer Institute provides unionists with real solutions for higher education

Higher education may be under attack, but the AFT and the American Association of University Professors are ready to fight back. During the AAUP/AFT's Summer Institute in Detroit Aug. 1-4, faculty and staff across the country strategized over tackling threats to academic freedom, shared governance, program closures, budget cuts and more. At plenaries, workshops and networking sessions, participants learned from experts and one another, sharing the worst circumstances and the best solutions, useful data and tools, and encouraging tales and lessons learned.

Living the struggle

The conference opened with two members sharing their unions' struggles with statewide threats. Gretchen McNamara, chief negotiator for the AAUP chapter at Wright State University in Ohio, described how her union successfully stopped a state law targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs; the ability to strike; and faculty control over their own syllabuses. Among other things, WSU-AAUP/AFT helped rally 553 people to testify against the bill.

Mia McIver, from University Council-AFT, which represents librarians and non-senate faculty at the University of California, connected academic freedom with working conditions: Without job security, adjunct faculty are often fearful their jobs will not be renewed if they speak out about challenging topics. "A campus culture of fear, intimidation and threat can be perpetuated very [effectively] through precarious working conditions," said McIver, and the exploitation of contingent labor "erodes and degrades academic freedom for the entire faculty."

Recent student protests on a number of campuses further highlighted the threat, when police disrupted encampments and arrested or harassed those involved. UC-AFT has consistently championed policies that protect academic freedom and freedom of expression across all campus constituencies.

A panel of union members from historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions discussed chronic underfunding that goes beyond even what higher education institutions are facing more generally. Denise Gaither-Hardy, president of the AAUP/AFT chapter at Lincoln University, an HBCU in Pennsylvania, described how students and faculty played a key role in releasing funds that had been held back by the state, a common occurrence for HBCUs. Lincoln University students marched 66 miles to the state capital to draw attention to the issue.

Panelists also discussed the myth that because HBCUs are, by definition, majority-Black spaces, everything is better there for Black scholars. It's not always true: In these institutions-which were actually founded by white men, in many cases, and later were led by a male-dominated church culture-Black women can feel disempowered.

Emotional labor is another burden, especially on campuses where most faculty are white: Black students-especially first-generation college students-flock to Black faculty for advice, taking time from their already full schedules to support students who benefit from a mentor who can relate to their life experiences.

Panelists urged attendees to reach out to HBCUs in their states and partner up, leaning into the union notion that "together we are stronger." Mental health, job security, pay rates and well-maintained campuses are not just HBCU problems, they are union problems.

Spreading the word, sharing the tools

Some of the most powerful moments of the conference took place in small rooms packed with eager members ready to pick up tools they could take home to their campuses and communities. Workshops provided information-on topics like student debt, artificial intelligence, Title IX and affirmative action-and skill-building sessions on communicating with members, escalating contract campaigns, fighting program cancellations, holding organizing conversations, conducting strategic campaign research, and even participating in mock bargaining.

Several sessions addressed equity. One explored how to deal with the spate of anti-diversity, equity and inclusion legislation that is threatening faculty and staff not just in Florida and Texas but across the country. Another looked at the ways race and gender influence job security, power and even safety on campus.

A plenary on elections, with Michigan state Rep. Carrie Rheingans (also a member of the Lecturers' Employee Organization/AFT at the University of Michigan) and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a former AFT member, also galvanized participants. After an extraordinary 2020 election-when hundreds of citizens showed up at the Michigan election certification meeting to convince the board of canvassers to resist pressure from then-President Trump to reject the election results (the board did resist, and certified the election)-she sees 2024 as "the next great battle."

The state is well-prepared, with at-home voting, Election Day registration, automatic registration and nine days of early voting in place-"all of which has dramatically expanded citizens' opportunities to register and participate in the process," said Benson. "The power of the people is greater than the people in power," she added. "We lived it."

Rheingans described the role of higher education as crucial to the voting process. "One of the most basic things we need to establish and ensure is that we have an educated population," she said. "As educators, you do have power."

[Virginia Myers]

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