BY CAROLYN BETENSKY In the middle of the summer and in the middle of a pandemic, with an overwhelming majority of faculty and other community stakeholders voicing their objections to the plan and with few students weighing in on it, the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) voted on…
BY RAFAEL JAIME As colleges and universities prepare to reopen in the fall, academic workers across the country are making it clear they are not interested in returning to business as usual. The years-long crisis underscored the extent to which our current higher education system has lost sight of its core mission to educate future…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today more than 3,000 student workers at Columbia University in New York City went on strike after more than two years of unsuccessful negotiations over the university’s first graduate student labor contract. The walkout comes more than four years after student workers voted to unionize, forming the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto…
BY A SAINT LEO UNIVERSITY FACULTY MEMBER In the face of challenging and even perilous working conditions, teachers at all levels need unions to help protect them during the pandemic. However, one university in Florida used the pandemic as an opportunity for union busting. The story of the unilateral disenfranchisement of faculty members at Saint…
BY GRETCHEN MCNAMARA Wright State University plans to begin the retrenchment process that will result in workforce reductions. Elevate Dayton is publishing the perspectives of students, faculty, alumni and other Wright State community members that could be affected by the changes. Gretchen McNamara, a senior lecturer of music and union executive committee member, explores her torn feelings…
BY DONNA MURCH Tonight Rutgers AAUP-AFT will hold the first session of a new initiative we’ve been working on for months. In the tradition of Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the 1960s civil rights movement, we are setting up a Freedom School for political education and outreach. Our first event on Thursday,…
BY SUE RAMLO They said they were sorry; they said that it was financial. We were devastated when we got the emails or phone calls about meetings with an administrator concerning our future at the University of Akron (UA)–we were being fired. Our situation made national news because there are nearly one hundred of us…
BY THE COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE OF AKRON-AAUP The members of the University of Akron Chapter of The American Association of University Professors have voted to not ratify the proposed collective bargaining agreement with The University of Akron Board of Trustees. The electronic balloting process ended at 1pm, Wednesday August 5th. The University’s Board of Trustees had…
POSTED BY MARTY KICH On July 15, the University of Akron Board of Trustees, at the recommendation of President Gary Miller, terminated the employment of ninety-seven full-time faculty members. When factoring in retirements, this results in the loss of over one hundred faculty. The Board and President must rescind this decision or resign their positions.…