HELU Blog

From Helena Worthen No. Wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast is just the simplest way to state where we’ve got to go in order to eliminate contingency, reclaim academic freedom and get back higher education as a public good. “Wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast” may be ambitious, but it didn’t come out of nowhere. HELU is just the current front […]

From Marcus Johnson, Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park and a member of AAUP-AFT. This year, University System of Maryland graduate workers and faculty are once again backing legislation that would recognize collective bargaining (CB) rights for graduate assistants, faculty librarians, full-time and part-time faculty. When the National

From Evan Bowman, IT Project Coordinator at OHSU and IT Chair of AFSCME Local 328, which represents over 8,000 healthcare workers. Portland, OR – The House Officers Union (AFSCME Local 4820) at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has overwhelmingly voted to ratify their second three-year contract, with 96% of members voting to approve (OHSU

Written by Geoff Johnson. Geoff Johnson is a member of CFT/AFT San Diego and Grossmont Guild. Johnson is also Adjunct Rep to the CFT Community College Council, Chair of the CCA/CTA Part-time Faculty Issues Committee, President of the AFT Adjunct/Contingent Caucus, and sits on the One-Tier Task Force. This message is addressed to locals that are

from Sean O’Brien, AAUP-AFT 6075 at Wayne State University HELU is teamed up with Labor@Wayne, the labor education program at Wayne State University in Michigan, to do an occasional series of labor history/labor issue lectures. Labor education programs like Labor@Wayne exist at many public colleges and universities and bring a perspective on the world that

From Joseph Ramsey, University of Massachusetts Boston The Contingency Task Force is the place in HELU that draws people for whom the issue of contingency is central, where they can report, discuss, debate, and strategize. Of all the activist formations in HELU, the CTF may be the least formal, although it is also productive and

By Jane S. Gabin Despite having a Ph.D. I was unable to find full-time teaching work, so, like many of you, I took my skills elsewhere. I worked for 10 years in the admissions office of UNC-Chapel Hill and then became a college counselor at selective secondary schools in New York. At a conference I

by Joseph G. Ramsey Our Contingency Task Force (CTF) spent the fall reflecting on the strong turnout and the many insights gathered from our two-part summer series on Confronting Contingency. This series drew a diverse coast-to-coast group of 300 faculty (and other higher ed allies) together for a pair of two-hour discussions this summer. Many attendees have

by Jill Penn and Aimee Loiselle, Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education On November 1, SFNDHE, a founding partner of HELU,  hosted its first solo virtual forum. Lisa Levenstein (UNC-G) organized the event, and Karma Chávez (UT-A) moderated with WVU speakers Lisa DiBartolomeo (Russian Studies, Slavic & East European Studies) and Jessica Wilkerson