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AAUP Travels South of the Border
Estelle Gellman, chair of the AAUP's Collective Bargaining Congress (CBC), and Michael Mauer, director of the Association's Department of Organizing and Services, joined hundreds of leaders and activists from educational organizations in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in Zacatecas, Mexico, on November 3-5. The conference was the fifth such gathering sponsored by the Trinational Coalition in Defense of Public Education.
The coalition was formed in response to the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It has become increasingly clear in recent years that regional and global free-market trade initiatives like NAFTA and the General Agreement on Trade in Services have repercussions for education. The coalition's goal is to strengthen public education and preserve it as a social right. On a practical level, the coalition facilitates information exchanges and cross-border activities in defense of public education.
The Mexican section of the coalition, including all of the major independent professors' unions, hosted the conference. Some thirty Canadians journeyed to Mexico, with the higher education contingent led by the presidents of the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Fédération Québécoise des Professeures et Professeurs d'Université. The United States was represented by Gellman, Mauer, and Enrique Ochoa of the California Faculty Association, who is a professor at California State University-Los Angeles.
Participants explored the state of higher education in the three nations, focusing on the need to maintain adequate funding in the public sector, increase access to higher education, and turn back efforts to strip faculty of their proper role in determining the conditions of learning on campuses. In panels and in the opening plenary session, the three U.S. representatives reported on developments in the United States.
The AAUP delegation was struck by the similarities in the challenges facing educators in the three nations. CBC chair Gellman remarks, "Certainly, there are clear differences in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in terms of the structure of our higher educational systems. But whether we look at the need for affordability and access, threats to intellectual property rights, inappropriate measures of faculty accountability, or the casualization of the workforce, it's clear that we all confront the same threats. They cross national borders and, if we're going to counter them effectively, we need to think and act together."
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