AFT members plunge in to shape the future
of higher education

From fighting for academic freedom to crafting solutions for the academic staffing crisis to asserting our voice in federal legislation to organizing prodigiously in a time of labor struggle, AFT members are actively working to change our world. That was the message of this year’s higher education issues conference held in Portland, Ore., March 28 to April 2. 

The conference was titled “Solidarity in Action: How AFT Can Shape the Future of Higher Education.” It featured plenty of provocative plenaries and 22 hands-on workshops, giving participants the chance to soak up the wisdom of experts or jump in to shape policy and practice.

AFT vice president William Scheuerman welcomed a record crowd of 350 registrants and gave an overview of the state of the union. The good news: AFT members are more active and involved than ever. With 10,000 professionals newly organized in the last five years, AFT Higher Education now represents 160,000. The bad news: Forces that would undermine higher education are growing stronger too.

Scheuerman, president of United University Professions of the State University of New York, ticked off the usual culprits: economic forces that are driving up costs, political forces that are cutting funding or imposing misguided accountability requirements, and conservative forces that are restricting academic freedom and free speech. Most pernicious, he and others said, are the ideological attacks on faculty and staff that derail efforts to address the “real” problems facing higher education.

“We’re in a war,” said Scheuerman, “against a well-financed group of reactionaries who have the time and the smarts to bring indoctrination into the classroom under the guise of ‘intellectual diversity’ or ‘academic freedom.’

“We started out playing defense, but things have changed in two years. They’ve gotten worse. So now we’re shifting, too.”

The FACE initiative. One of the most significant examples of that shift is the national FACE campaign, which the AFT officially kicked off at the conference. FACE stands for Faculty and College Excellence. It is a state legislative initiative that addresses the declining number of full-time, tenured faculty and calls for equity in pay and teaching resources for part-time/adjunct faculty. The campaign “aims to reframe the debate and steal the limelight from the right wing,” explained Barbara Bowen, an AFT vice president and president of the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York.

“The AFT has signaled that the current staffing system is intolerable,” she said. “It is based on a system of exploitation.”

At the heart of FACE is model legislation that has been introduced in 10 states since January. Before the conference, AFT Oregon members testified on FACE at a hearing before the Oregon House of Representatives (see story on p. 11). Two days later, 12 AFT leaders from California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania held a radio media tour, doing radio interviews that were aired to a total listening audience of 11 million during morning drive time. FACE activists from the states where the legislation has been introduced shared their experiences at the conference.

Part-time and contingent labor concerns. Beyond FACE, part-time and adjunct faculty explored political and organizing avenues for improving their pay and working conditions. Workshops dealt with protecting job security, developing member activism and lobbying effectively. 

Academic freedom. Another example of the union’s proactive stance is the AFT program and policy council’s work on an Academic Freedom statement, to be released later this year. All the conference participants received the statement and were able to comment and suggest revisions during a vigorous exchange at the closing session. With a minority of faculty achieving tenure, part of the challenge is finding new ways to secure academic freedom protections. As Elaine Bobrove, president of the Camden County College (N.J.) Adjunct Faculty Federation, pointed out, the best protections are those guaranteed in the contract. Adjuncts need to push to be included in the academic life of their disciplines and institutions.

Culture of organizing. Opening night keynote speaker Ted Kirsch, president of AFT Pennsylvania and an AFT vice president, talked about strengthening member activism by applying AFT’s “culture of organizing” precepts to turn nonmembers into members, members into activists and activists into leaders. “We have to learn how to get our younger members more involved,” he said. “Get your members involved on our issues and you will be successful.”

Labor rights. Polishook lecturer Donna Eubanks, counsel for the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee, described the legal and legislative attacks on the academy and how to surmount them. In case after case, she said, the attacks reach deeply into core academic decision-making regarding what may be taught, how it should be taught, who may teach and who may be admitted. Collective bargaining provides as much protection as is possible with an anti-worker majority on the National Labor Relations Board. She recommended other protective strategies, including negotiating strong language addressing who is a supervisor and what is academic freedom, timeless retirement packages, and more neutrality agreements.

Accountability. Referring to Texas as a “fourth-world country,” University of Texas-Austin philosophy professor Ken Buckman described his state’s infatuation with such buzzword concepts as accountability, assessments, learning outcomes and standardization. “Politicians who are ignorant of what goes on in our classrooms push these things,” he said. On the national scale, the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education has made clear that testing and assessment will play a bigger role if the U.S. Department of Education has its say, observed Kathy Sproles, president of the NEA National Council for Higher Education at another session.

Political action. Engaging members, especially newcomers to the union, in action on political campaigns is a big part of moving the union forward, conference-goers heard from many speakers. In workshops, they honed their skills of lobbying, mobilizing voters and building coalitions. Two computer stations were set up in the registration area to allow members to go to the “You Decide 2008” page on the AFT Web site and write their comments about current presidential candidates.

Hands-on training. From media training to using LeaderNet and other tools to role-playing meetings with legislators, this conference threw attendees into an environment of learning through doing.