The AAUP’s members are “leveling up” as organizers, in advocacy and collective bargaining contexts, through the wildly successful Core Skills mass online training series, part of the Organize Every Campus campaign.
Inspired by the work of organizing teachers such as Jane McAlevey, KB Brower, Jollene Levid, and Ethan Earle at places like the UC Berkeley Labor Center and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, the AAUP’s leaders and staff have developed this program to help chapters organize around issues ranging from academic freedom to economic security. AAUP members from community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities, state university systems, and liberal arts colleges across the country have drilled down on organizing fundamentals to organize walkouts, increase chapter membership, and fight back in the difficult present political climate.
Our largest ever cohort of members participated in the February 2026 trainings: 337 attendees from fifty-five chapters across twenty-four states and Washington, DC. North Carolina’s delegation led the way, with fifty attendees from seven chapters. Since its launch last year, Core Skills has reached a total of 650 members across ninety chapters.
The trainings cover the following skills:
- Building an organizing network: How to map your workplace and develop internal communication structures
- Organic leader identification: How to build the right team of the right people to move majorities of your workforce into action by identifying your most respected coworkers and winning them over
- Signing up dues-paying members: How to work through objections and reframe the choice to join
- Running a campaign: How to identify an organizing target, plan out the steps to win, and use your collective leverage
- Running structure tests: How to test the strength of the organization you’re building and increase pressure on your target
- Having organizing conversations: How to systematically move your coworkers to take collective action
The next iteration of the Core Skills training will be held in person in June at the AAUP Higher Ed Summit and Biennial Meeting in Chicago. The next online session will be held over five Fridays beginning on October 2.