The following is the text of a media release issued this morning by the American Association of University Professors and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) today announced that they have agreed to work together as partner organizations in “defense and promotion of academic freedom, shared university governance, and the economic security of all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education.” In a formal agreement approved by the governing bodies of both organizations and signed last week, the faculty groups “agreed to join together as independent but allied and cooperating entities.”
Under the arrangement, which will last for three years and is renewable, individual members of the nine campus faculty associations affiliated with CUCFA will be eligible to join the AAUP at special dues rates payable through their campus association. CUCFA has also agreed to contribute financially to the AAUP, and the AAUP has agreed to provide the California associations with some support services. The two organizations will promote each other’s activities and plan to initiate a joint membership organizing drive at all ten University of California campuses.
Henry Reichman, AAUP first vice-president and a faculty member at California State University–East Bay, negotiated the agreement on behalf of the AAUP. “The University of California system is the largest and most prestigious public research institution in the country, arguably the world. And the UC’s have an exceptionally strong tradition of faculty activism dating back to the loyalty oath controversy of the 1950s and the Berkeley Free Speech Movement of 1964,” he said. “We in the AAUP are therefore excited about working more closely with the dedicated faculty leaders who have built and sustained CUCFA and its constituent associations since their formation in the 1970s as effective advocates for the principles that AAUP has upheld for nearly a century.”
CUCFA president Patricia Morton, a faculty member at University of California at Riverside, predicted that association members will welcome the opportunity to join the AAUP. “We believe that partnering with the AAUP will produce benefits for both organizations. It will help CUCFA advance its mission and strengthen our ability to represent the interests of all UC faculty,” she said. “We also believe that the AAUP will gain from the valuable experience and ideas of CUCFA’s members and leadership and from CUCFA’s advocacy of our shared principles and goals throughout the University of California.”
The Council of University of California Faculty Associations is a coordinating and service agency for the several Faculty Associations — associations of UC Senate faculty — on the separate campuses of the University of California, and it represents them to all state- or university-wide agencies on issues of common concern. It gathers and disseminates information on issues before the legislative and executive branches of California’s government, other relevant state units dealing with higher education, the University administration, and the Board of Regents. The Faculty Associations are voluntary dues supported organizations and are therefore completely independent. CUCFA is committed to renewing public investment in California higher education by giving every California family a stake in the system by restoring full access and by regaining the trust of the people by restoring accountability. The public-spirited legacy of generations will be squandered if the best of the system is financially out of reach for most citizens and increasingly controlled by corporate funders. The people of California will support higher education if it serves us all again.
The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom and shared governance; to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; to promote the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education; to help the higher education community organize to make our goals a reality; and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good. Founded in 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country’s colleges and universities.
