Faculty Alliance of Miami: FAM

FAM Updates

  • Why should contingency matter to tenure-line faculty?

    Why should contingency matter to tenure-line faculty?

    First, what’s contingency? As defined by the GAO* and AAUP, “contingent faculty” is an umbrella term encompassing all non-tenure-system faculty — that is, faculty who, to different degrees, experience precarity. Contingent faculty teach about 60% of the credit hours taught at Miami.  Contingency matters a LOT to tenure-line faculty. Why? Reduction in TT numbers leads to increased service…

  • Do NTT faculty at Miami have academic freedom?

    Do NTT faculty at Miami have academic freedom?

    Do NTT faculty at Miami have academic freedom? What about due process in case of non-renewal?* Fact: The answer to both questions is no. While Miami asserts both the value and existence of academic freedom at Miami, it provides due process protections only for tenured faculty — not for non-tenure-track faculty, now the majority of faculty, whose…

  • How contingency affects all of us

    For our first fall meeting, the chapter hosted a panel of Miami contingent faculty. They contributed valuably to our discussion of contingency, an issue we hope to make a focus this year. Whether you are a tenured or tenure-line faculty member, a student, a visiting assistant professor or instructor, an adjunct, or just a citizen,…

  • AAUP denounces DACA decision

    Today’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA) will cause massive insecurity, difficulty, disruption and harm for hundreds of thousands of innocent, hardworking people—many of them our students. (The majority of people with DACA status are university students). Miami AAUP urges faculty and students to call their legislators to express support for…

  • Miami AAUP’s Statement on Diversity: A Call to the Miami Community

    At a galvanizing and moving chapter meeting on February 15, the leader of Graduate Students from All Nations, Ancilleno Lewis, urged all of us present to ask our departments and programs to make statements in strong support of students from other nations. Lewis and others reported disturbing details about hate-related activity happening on campus. Some…

  • Rudy Fichtenbaum on RCM at Miami

    Our chapter meeting tomorrow night features a talk on RCM by National AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum, who is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Wright State University. RCM, or Responsibility Centered Management, is a budgeting model that’s swept higher education, a decentralized management model that rewards revenue generation and cost efficiency in academia. Do the risks…

  • On the immigrant question: The production of fear is an industry that serves private interests

    For all my friends in the university community and elsewhere who are more vulnerable under the new order—and for all those who are not their friends: Whatever your feelings about the increasingly anti-immigrant efforts of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it’s worth considering another period of our history when our democratic future hung…

  • #NoBanNoWall

    Our international students, staff, and colleagues, regardless of their immigration status, are part of our community. Our community must make every effort to keep them safe, free, and able to pursue their studies. Please join our chapter in support of international students and in protest of Donald Trump’s recent executive order. What you can do:…

  • Action Alert: “Guns Everywhere” Bill

    Members and friends, we hope you will call your Senators to tell them *NO on HB 48*, the “Guns Everywhere” bill allowing concealed carry on campus. The bill was not passed this week as expected, but will likely be passed next week, perhaps with amendments that would make it impossible for institutions to reduce the…