Cooperation Illustration

BY MATTHEW BOEDY

This week I am heading to Baton Rouge to speak to our AAUP colleagues in the Pelican State.

My message to be developed in my keynote for the state conference meeting will be: no one is coming to save us and so we have to do much more to save ourselves. I may post a longer excerpt if it is received well.

But I wanted the larger audience of readers of this blog to note why I am traveling to speak. For many years in our southern region AAUP networking across states has long been a priority. Though the fruits of that network beyond sharing sentiments were not always clear.

It’s why as conference president following my predecessor I made it a priority to keep in contact with conference presidents. That kind of communication helped inspire the first ever Faculty in the South survey last year. And we are expanding it to at least eleven states in the fall.

That kind of fruit is a first step to letting faculty speak for themselves.

If you are in those states, you can join me and spread the survey, be ready for media interest, and present results to faculty groups. Contact me for more.

If you are not in those states, perhaps outside the South where collective bargaining is more impactful, regional faculty collectives can be helpful to you. If university system chancellors and campus presidents are thinking regionally, then faculty should be too. If indeed you want to have a seat at the strategic planning table.

From where I sit in Georgia faculty are consistently far behind decisions makers in long term planning. We are often given polite affirmations and a few early notices on planning. There are some moments where we do indeed work well and early with administrations, especially at smaller and mid-sized schools whose new presidents want to put their best foot forward. But there are other places where faculty votes of no confidence have been the last resort after years of indifference and even hostility.

The more I read over the AAUP investigation report of Spartanburg Community College, the more I come to understand that while many administrations will convene faculty expertise, if push comes to shove, if the faculty decide to stand adverse to them, many administrations will do what the one in Spartanburg did.

And if you are wondering, collective bargaining won’t save you from many decisions made by administrations. The budget ax can come for us all.

So then as faculty we need better information and better access to trends in higher education beyond media like the Chronicle of Higher Education, though they do good work.

Faculty regional groups can offer faculty a bigger picture. They also help faculty show strength to administration especially if, as our survey showed, faculty are leaving a state. They might be leaving for a state nearby.

We are expanding our survey to get that regional picture. Many faculty said they were leaving the big four states we surveyed. And many were leaving for better financial pastures outside the region. But I also have a sense that there is great migration from smaller southern states to growing ones. And salary is often the driver.

State lawmakers are interested in regional competition. I still think there remains a majority of state lawmakers in all states who want to fund higher education. And we have to convince them that their workforce development—the actual people developing the workforce—deserve more. Joining forces is the way forward here.

And you better believe state university systems are interested in regional competition. Just look at the debate over when to return or how to return to using admissions tests.

Within these groups also are elements that stand against faculty priorities such as tenure and academic freedom. So when I say no one is coming to save us, I am saying these elements are winning. For now.

We have to do more to save ourselves, convincing those who can be convinced. Regional cooperation is just one step.

Contributing editor Matthew Boedy is the Georgia AAUP president and professor at the University of North Georgia. He is on Twitter or X @matthewboedy.