Happy Labor Day, Miami colleagues! During this global pandemic and the unprecedented degradation in working and educational conditions in 2020- 2021, your Miami AAUP chapter has redoubled its efforts to assure high-quality education and faculty welfare, support academic freedom, advance the economic and professional status of the entire faculty, and represent an independent faculty voice in university governance.
Your AAUP chapter is part of a strong national association whose active members have included John Dewey, Albert Einstein and many thousands more. Since 1915, the American Association of University Professors has worked for high quality education and academic freedom in America’s colleges and universities, creating the modern system of tenure and helping assure equity in education.
Here are some of the Miami chapter actions and achievements you and your colleagues have participated in since the start of the pandemic.
Battling for COVID safety and pandemic-era equity
Miami AAUP faculty worked together over the past year to issue petitions, surveys and statements about COVID safety, workload and our teacher-scholar mission, support for non-tenure-track colleagues, the loss of faculty jobs, inequities on our Regional campuses, the risks of reopening, defense of tenure, and the abrogation of shared governance during the crisis. You and your colleagues in the chapter raised awareness among faculty and pressured Miami leadership to make better and more transparent decisions.
Defending shared governance and budget transparency
95% of your colleagues voted to support a bold AAUP resolution, the Faculty Assembly Resolution on Shared Governance and Budget Transparency. The Board has responded to its two demands, and the result (see here and here) is a partial, but important, victory that bodes well for the future of shared governance at Miami. The fight continues.
Supporting and initiating racial and gender equity efforts on campus and beyond
You and your colleagues in the chapter supported student activism at Miami, issued statements, helped to organize forums addressing the racialized effects of debt, budget decisions and policing on campus, proposed and supported Senate actions to advance racial and gender equity on campus, and worked with chapters across the Midwest to demand racial equity during the pandemic. There is much more to be done on this front and we look forward to the work.
Building collective power on campus and at state and national level
AAUP Miami is part of a large and growing movement to create an accessible, equitable, economically secure and intellectually adventurous future for students, staff and faculty in public higher education.
- Locally, your chapter more than doubled during the pandemic. Our successful spring and summer outreach efforts educated colleagues about chapter work. We are building solidarity across ranks and categories, particularly by increasing awareness about non-tenure-track faculty needs and goals.
- At state and national level, your chapter helped to found the Save Ohio Higher Ed Coalition and the Midwest AAUP coalition, supports the New Deal for Higher Education, participates in organizing against university debt, and is part of the Ohio coalition of the Lawyer’s Committee on Civil Rights.
- In 2020–2021, AAUP Miami’s work was covered in over thirty local and national news articles, including pieces in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Washington Post.
Growing through outreach
Colleagues in your chapter regularly do individual outreach conversations to identify faculty issues. This is helping the chapter build shared understanding and collective power. If you are interested in doing outreach, or if you would like for a member of AAUP to reach out to you to hear your perspectives on how things are going at Miami, write a member of Steering or miamiaaup@gmail.com.
All are welcome to attend and participate in our chapter meetings, held electronically at 3 PM on the first Friday of the month (for the link, write miamiaaup@gmail.com). Experience the community and solidarity of talking with committed and like-minded colleagues about our common hopes for protecting our students, our disciplines, and our profession. Fight back against demoralization and institutional indifference by sharing the woes and joys of our profession while finding ways to assure that better days are coming.
Miami AAUP is you.
As a democratic, grass-roots organization, we depend on your input and energy to set our compass and fill our sails. Join your colleagues at aaup.org/join. We look forward to your involvement in the coming year.
Steering Committee
Miami University AAUP
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