Helena Worthen, Co-chair with Evan Bowman, HELU Media/Comms
At the HELU General Assembly on November 20, 2025, HELU delegates will elect new Officers and Steering Committee. All HELU Officer and Steering Committee roles are up for election. The term of the new leadership will be January 2026 until January 2028.
If you are a Delegate, you should seriously consider nominating yourself for this election. HELU is the cutting edge of labor-focused organizing in higher education. We need everyone to help push our wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast organizing project forward.
The main website for the General Assembly in November is here: November 20 GA & Elections webpage. The agenda is forthcoming. The election has already been announced in a message sent to delegates. If you are a delegate and have not received the announcement, contact info@higheredlaborunited.org.
To self-nominate and run, you should first register for the November 20 General Assembly here. Then use this form to self-nominate.
Any HELU delegate can run for Steering Committee positions or Officer positions. To be eligible to run for a certain position, you must work in that position. Steering Committee positions (not Officer positions) are dedicated seats. If you are running for a dedicated seat, like “healthcare staff” or “undergraduate student workers”, you must actually work in that position so you can represent it. Note that “positions” is plural. This is because you may be eligible to run for more than one seat. For example, if you provide building services at a community college, you can run for both the building services position and the community college position.
Here is a list of the 12 dedicated seats. They will also pop up on the form where you self-nominate.
- Part-Time Adjunct/Contingent Faculty
- Full-Time Contingent Faculty
- Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty
- Graduate Student Workers
- Undergraduate Student Workers
- Service and Maintenance Staff
- Clerical, Technical, and Research Staff
- Healthcare Staff
- Community Colleges
- Statewide Systems
- Non-collective bargaining advocacy organizations
- Non-collective bargaining jurisdiction organizations
Nominations close at 5:00 pm ET / 4 :00 CT / 3:00 MT / 2:00 PT, on Wednesday, November 6, two weeks before the November 20 General Assembly. As self-nominations come in, you will see the full slate of candidates and their statements online here. We are planning a candidate forum on zoom where you can hear people talk about what they want to do with HELU.
The 2023-2025 Steering Committee is planning to meet with the newly elected leadership in Detroit the weekend of December 6-7 for reflection, strategizing and handover.
The current Steering Committee meets twice a month on zoom at times set by the availability of its members. It would be a good idea to read HELU’s Constitution and By Laws when you consider running.
Do you have a question that’s not addressed here? Reach out to info@higheredlaborunited.org and we’ll get back to you ASAP.