From the President: The AAUP Needs You
BY Cary Nelson
I am writing to extend my greetings to the AAUP’s members and to highlight some of our current priorities. All AAUP members—activists on campus, leaders at all levels—face grave challenges now and in the near future. Power is shifting to central administrations and away from faculty. Shared governance is in retreat. Increased reliance on contingent faculty threatens both tenure and academic freedom. Tolerance for campus political dissent is decreasing. There is a depressingly widespread conviction among parents and administrators alike that education needs to be little more than job training.
Yet there is much that we can do and are doing. Many chapters continue to stand up for their members when their rights are threatened, but many other chapters are in disrepair and cannot do so. Our nationwide committees and national staff are the best source of higher education policy statements in the country. During the past year, we have taken on the responsibility of defending the academy against efforts to legislate political “balance” in faculty hiring; these efforts are a major assault on academic freedom, and we have so far been completely effective in blocking this well-funded campaign promoting such legislation. The Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure investigations we conduct are thorough and principled; the reports often enough make for riveting reading. But many of us carry a wound in our hearts that never heals—of a violation of academic freedom the AAUP did not pursue. We are not strong enough to fight the number of battles that should be fought.
Membership has held steady for the last decade at about 45,000. We should have at least three times that number. If every AAUP member brought in two new members next semester, our financial problems would be solved, we could provide better services to all, and our political and institutional impact would be substantially greater. I am inspired to call for this effort by the “Talk to Two” section of the Web site of the Rutgers University chapter. Each and every one of you can do it—sign up two new members. It is not a question of whether the member to the left or the right of you has agreed to recruit two new members. The question is more direct: it’s about you. Will you make this commitment? Will you lead by your example? Will you make your own membership a platform for organizational growth? Will you help guarantee the future of academic freedom?
Start in your own department, with the colleagues you know best. You will find that most of the people you approach will match your commitment with one of their own. They will join. I have done it and actually enjoyed making the pitch for an organization in which I believe.
We particularly need to balance our ongoing success at collective bargaining drives with increases in traditional membership. Collective bargaining card drives are ideal for generating local solidarity, excitement, and commitment; they hold out the promise of better salaries and benefits and of greater faculty impact on campus decision making. So it’s not surprising that’s why many of our members join. Yet some collective bargaining locals have lost the habit of organizing and have let their membership slip. As president, one of my highest priorities is to increase our collective bargaining organizing. Yet the slow erosion of our advocacy membership threatens our public profile and our capacity to be effective on non-collective-bargaining campuses.
The national leadership cannot address this problem on its own. It needs your effort to bring in members. We can provide recruitment materials, but the most effective approach is often simply to explain why your AAUP membership matters to you, while also taking time to listen to your colleagues’ concerns. I urge both collective bargaining and non-collectivebargaining members to make this recruitment pledge and let us know of your success. We will find ways to publicize the list of successful recruiters.
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