Summer Institute

Our Summer Institute is the premier training program for faculty advocates, and one of the best sources available for learning the practical skills that faculty unionists need to build their organizations and run them successfully. Every year, faculty members from around the country attend this four-day series of intensive workshops to learn about AAUP policies, discuss the issues facing the academy, sharpen their skills as union leaders, and develop strategies for organizing. Not only do attendees benefit from these educational, skills-building sessions, but they also enjoy the opportunity to network and brainstorm with fellow higher-education advocates.

The Summer Institute’s training is aimed at a broad audience of faculty advocates in both collective bargaining and non-collective bargaining contexts. Each year, the Summer Institute’s program trains faculty to:

  • become more effective advocates for AAUP policies and standards;
  • establish and protect mechanisms of shared governance and shared decision-making, including negotiating in non-union contexts;
  • build membership and power in local chapters and state conferences;
  • increase each chapter’s capacity to mobilize, from basic communications to contract campaigns to direct actions;
  • evaluate college and university finances as a means to hold administrations accountable for the priorities of higher education;
  • launch new organizing projects by developing leaders, creating a campaign structure, using databases, and crafting messages; and
  • represent themselves as unionists, whether it be in negotiations, the grievance process, arbitrations, or labor-management meetings.

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The 2025 Summer Institute will be held July 17–20 at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.