HELU Articles
May 2026 HELU Chair’s Message
From Levin Kim, HELU Chair and member of UAW 4121: What’s next? In the months leading up to May Day, higher ed workers from coast to coast built power around a simple but powerful set of demands to assert a worker-centered vision for higher ed. More importantly, workers, students, and alumni on campuses and metro…
Due Process Resolution for Contingents at AFT Convention
By Geoff Johnson, At Large member of HELU and President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus At the AFT National Convention in Washington, DC on July 16-19, 2026, the Adjunct/Contingent Caucus will present a resolution calling for AFT to create model language and legislation for Due Process rights for Contingent faculty. This resolution is backed by…
How the Crackdown on the Encampments Revealed Higher Ed’s MAGA Consensus
Helena Worthen with Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, HELU individual member, historian of American colleges and universities, author of Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023), Inventing the Liberal University (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of Degrees of Liberation (SUNY Press, forthcoming). Listen to…
Resistance to right-wing state interference with Florida’s colleges and universities: An interview with Robert Cassanello, President of United Faculty of Florida
The United Faculty of Florida (UFF) is a statewide union representing close to 10,000 public higher education workers in Florida. UFF has chapters in all public universities (12 in total). We have 16 chapters in the state college system and 4 graduate student chapters. UFF represents mostly instructional faculty and instructional support faculty. HELU asks: In…
How the Politics and Policy Committee Works
by Jenna Chernega, HELU Vice Chair and Chair of the HELU Politics & Policy Committee The Politics and Policy (P&P) committee is fairly large. I would guess that there are well over 20 people on the google groups list. Basically, we let anyone in who expresses interest in joining the committee, either when they join HELU…
Current Politics and Policy Committee Projects
by Helena Worthen, based on an interview with Thomas Gokey, Organizer for Debt Collective, a HELU member labor organization, and active with the HELU Policyand Politics Committee HELU’s basic idea of centering the hoped-for transformation of the higher ed sector around labor means confronting opposition on multiple levels. One level is obviously collective bargaining, where…