HELU General Assembly

November 20, 2025

Info

Agenda

voting & Elections

Candidates

FAQs

2025 election results:

Chair: Levin Kim
Vice Chair (uncontested): Jenna Chernega
Secretary-Treasurer: Evan Bowman
Part-Time Adjunct/Contingent Faculty: Anke Wolbert
Full-Time Contingent Faculty (uncontested): Joe Ramsey
Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty: Bret Benjamin
Graduate Student Workers (uncontested): Presence O’Neal
Undergraduate Student Workers:unfilled
Service & Maintenance staff:unfilled
Clerical, Technical, and Research Staff (uncontested): Meghan McGowan
Healthcare Staff (uncontested): Carolyn Kube
Community Colleges (uncontested): Marissa Johnson Valenzuela
Statewide Systems (uncontested): Rebecca Givan
Non-Collective Bargaining Advocacy: Shannan Clark
Non-Collective Bargaining Jurisdiction Organizations: Emily Steinlight
General Representative (any category): Anne Balay and Shelly Baskin

Candidates for elected leadership

Come hear from the November 2025 candidates for HELU’s Steering Committee (term 2026-2028) at the Candidate Forum on November 17 at 7 PM ET / 6 CT / 5 MT / 4 PT

Officers

Candidates for Chair

ANNE BALAY

I joined HELU in 2020 with the words of my bargainer ringing in my ears: “What you are demanding is reasonable and just, but we will not win that until there is a national movement to change the structure of Higher Education.”

I have worked as an adjunct, as a full-time salaried lecturer, and as a tenure track professor. 16 Institutions have paid me to be on their faculty. I have also worked as a car mechanic and as a truck driver. These jobs have fueled my interest in collective action, and in the new working class, as have my books on blue-collar queers.

I’m excited by how HELU has grown, and committed to keeping that momentum. I coordinate a collective of Higher Ed workers in Boston that builds the grass roots activism that I believe will lead to HELU’s expansion. I work for SEIU in Boston, and formerly in St Louis. In this work I center women, queers, and people of color because we are the majority of Higher Ed workers, and the locus of so much potential for change in our industry.

LEVIN KIM

My name is Levin Kim, and I am an international graduate student worker at the University of Washington. I am running for HELU Chair with an organizing-driven vision for a fighting higher ed labor movement with the power to meet this moment.

I have grown alongside HELU over my time in the labor movement, as it evolved from an idea to the organization and movement it is today. As a current graduate worker and international student, the personal stakes of this moment are tremendously high. To me, this fight isn’t just about defending higher ed – it’s about rewriting the future of our sector.

Amidst the chaos of this moment, we have an opportunity to realign higher ed in the public interest to make it more accessible, secure, and free by coming together as a fighting movement. I am committed to building HELU’s delegate-driven approach for a wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast movement.

SEAN O’BRIEN

I served in HELU as a graduate worker, a contingent faculty member, and as academic staff. I’ve been here in three unions, serving part of that time as a Member-at-Large. I’ve chaired committees, overseen budgets, maintained our notes and history, and led innovative action in Michigan for our movement. My unique position has proved the importance of centering all workers and has allowed me to see the value of democratized power. But this isn’t about me. It’s about our future.

I’m seeking the Chair position to facilitate an agenda of moral ambition guiding us toward the 2028 General Strike. If we’re going to overcome the crises before us, we must ground ourselves in a structure built on rank-and-file empowerment. We have to be a force for change within higher ed labor unions, creating a supermajority of locals that shares our vision of a wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast coalition.

Candidate for Vice Chair

JENNA CHERNEGA

I understand why HELU’s mission to unite unions across the higher education sector is critical. In Minnesota, we know how powerful we are when we work together across job categories and bargaining divisions. People power drove the success of the 2023 legislative session here, where we won free college for low- and middle-income students, paid parental leave for all Minnesotans, free school lunches for kids, and so much more. HELU is the key to harnessing the people power inherent in higher education across the country.

I am a professor of sociology at Winona State University in southeastern Minnesota and currently serve as the president of the Inter Faculty Organization (IFO), the independent union that serves faculty, coaches, counselors and librarians in the seven Minnesota State universities. I’ve served in local and statewide union leadership for over 10 years, and I would be honored to serve HELU as Vice Chair.

Candidates for Secretary-Treasurer

SHELLY BASKIN

I am running for Secretary-Treasurer of HELU because I know how important financial stewardship is for organizations like ours to keep building power for higher education workers nationwide. When used strategically, our financial resources are the material foundation on which our members can build their campaigns and win change. Over the past several months I have worked with the HELU Budget Committee and I currently serve as the Finance and Operations Manager for United Campus Workers Southeast, where I oversee our Local’s finances and administrative infrastructure across eight state units. In this role, I have helped UCWSE grow sustainably and ensured that members’ resources are managed responsibly and strategically. As Secretary-Treasurer, I will bring the same accountability and organizing-centered vision to HELU’s work and help ensure we have the resources we need to win a better future for all workers.

EVAN BOWMAN

My name is Evan and I’m a delegate from AFSCME Local 328 in Portland, Oregon, where I serve as IT Chair. I have been privileged to serve as the HELU Vice-Chair and co-chair of the Media & Comms Committee. I am running for Secretary-Treasurer for several reasons. Primarily, my skillset is around process improvement and data. I also fundamentally believe in making room for new leaders and I endorse Jenna Chernega for Vice-Chair.

Making higher education accessible is a personal passion of mine. I was prevented from attending college due to being born poor. I now have four children near college age, none of whom will be attending without taking on crushing personal debt.

Despite not having a degree, I began working at Oregon Health & Science University 25 years ago. My organizing began by building tenant unions. That work was fulfilling but labor organizing is the critical fight.

SEAN O’BRIEN

As the next Secretary-Treasurer, I would work with members to build our capacity. Previously, I stewarded our finances when they were sponsored under Jobs with Justice before our formal founding. Since then, I’ve served as co-Chair of Outreach and Chair of the Constitution & Bylaws Committee. I work with a several million-dollar labor center budget and an even larger municipal budget as a city commissioner. I’m ready to take on the complexity of HELU’s budget.

The Secretary-Treasurer safeguards the history and resources of the organization. I will do this with a robust agenda to ensure HELU is an enduring organization that will outlast. My agenda includes: 1. Building a functioning 501(c)(3) branch to house grants legally, 2. Expand record retention, 3. A path for compensation to our Officers (even if I forgo that myself), 4. Create opportunities for Committee empowerment away from Steering, and 5. Focus on Delegate engagement.

Steering Committee

Part-Time Adjunct/Contingent Faculty

DAVID MILROY

I taught as a PT French instructor from 1988 to 2019 at 4 community colleges in San Diego County. I served as Chair of the California Part-time Faculty Association (CPFA) for several years and currently serve as Chair of the San Diego Adjunct Faculty Association (SDAFA). I am the president of the San Diego Division 4 of the California Retired Teachers Association (CalRTA), which led the fight to repeal the Social Security WEP/GPO as signed by President Biden. I also serve on the Retirement Committee for the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, FACCC, as well as being a 25-year member of the COCAL International Advisory Committee. I have been an outspoken advocate for contingent faculty rights and will continue to promote our issues and solutions. I would be grateful for your support.

ANKE WOLBERT

Little is more important right now than a wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast Higher Education Labor Movement that not only takes on the current moment but does something that has never been done before: organize the sector so we can reimagine Higher Education with sustainable and equitable working conditions for ALL workers. I am running for re-election to the HELU Steering Committee to ensure that ending the part-time/adjunct contingency crisis remains at the core of HELU’s mission.

I have been a part-time lecturer for over 15 years, and as the President of EMUFT, representing the part- and full-time lecturers at Eastern Michigan University, I see the impact our inequitable working conditions have every day. I have also been a HELU activist almost since its inception, served on the Steering Committee, and co-chaired NCOC. I believe with my whole being that the path forward to end the contingency crisis lies in HELU.

Full-Time Contingent Faculty

JOSEPH RAMSEY

A full-time Lecturer and union activist in the UMass system (FSU/MTA) for the past 15 years, I have worked tirelessly on contingent faculty issues in HELU since 2020. Chairing HELU’s Contingency Task Force, I’ve helped HELU take on the workplace divisions and job precarity that demoralize and undermine labor’s potential, building a robust committee that has organized dynamic public events to promote cross-rank understanding and solidarity. The CTF has become a HELU hub for recruiting new members, cultivating leaders, supporting member-led local initiatives, and sharing hard-fought lessons, while cultivating inclusive understandings of academic freedom, job security, and union democracy.

On the Steering Committee since 2023, I have worked to support HELU’s many constituent priorities, in light of our common vision. I believe leadership must be based in deep listening and trust, a willingness to speak up against the tide, and a commitment to unleash the creative power of our members.

Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty

BRET BENJAMIN

It would be a privilege to help build HELU into a broad and powerful national coalition of unions with the capacity to reshape higher education from the perspective of labor. I am a tenured faculty member in English at SUNY Albany, and a member of United University Professions (UUP), which represents more than 40,000 academic, professional, contingent, and health-care employees across the SUNY system. I am the lead contract negotiator for UUP and currently serve on its Executive Board. I have served on HELU’s steering committee, and have been co-chair of the National Coordinated Organizing Committee. I believe both in the HELU vision of sectoral higher-ed coordination, and in the organizational structure of a member-funded coalition driven by full participation of member unions. I am committed to doing the work needed to realize HELU’s ambitious and principled goals.

EMILY STEINLIGHT

I came to HELU early on and am running for Steering now because our sector’s future demands the wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast movement HELU is building. My two terms on the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee and current work as co-chair of organizing, overlapping with my work on HELU steering and NCOC, have taught me that the most powerful forms of collective action are coalitional. I’ve worked closely with members of unions across job categories on my campus to mobilize around joint demands for sanctuary, and in the broader fight for free higher ed with job security and dignity for all it’s been energizing to collaborate on rallies and events in Philly, NYC, and nationally. Organizing in and across our locals around an affirmative labor-movement agenda for higher ed as a public good is more urgent than ever, and I’d be honored to continue building HELU so we can make it a reality.

Graduate Student Workers

PRESENCE O’NEAL

As a past President of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF) at the University of Oregon, I am eager to work alongside HELU’s graduate members to sustain and build on the momentum of HELU’s mission. As graduate workers in 2025, we’re facing economic precarity due to targeted attacks on our research and teaching as well as threats of violence due to a resurgence of unabashed xenophobia, transphobia, and anti-Black racism. There’s no secret recipe to materially shift the imbalance of power on our campuses and in our communities. We have power in numbers, and we have numbers when our members show up for themselves and for each other. I am excited to support coalitions that celebrate our differences, center the perspectives of our most targeted community members, and prioritize consistency in organizing. More than ever, HELU is a place where we can be strategic and organize to face these threats together and to build worker power across higher education nationally.

Undergraduate Student Workers

no candidates

Service and Maintenance Staff

no candidates

Clerical, Technical, and Research Staff

MEGHAN MCGOWAN

I’m running to represent Clerical, Technical, and Research Staff on HELU’s Steering Committee because I believe in our collective power as working people to fight attacks on higher education and reclaim it as a universal right.

As a health sciences librarian at Wayne State University, I am fortunate to work with students, community members, staff, and faculty in the course of my day-to-day work. This uniquely positions me to nurture relationships across job classifications and continue to build HELU’s wall-to-wall coast-to-coast vision. At present, I am an elected member-at-large on Wayne Academic Union’s Executive Board, and a co-chair of our organizing arm. In HELU, I am on our Budget and Finance Committee, involved in Michigan HELU, and I actively participate in our National Coordinated Organizing Committee. These experiences prepared me to step up to HELU’s Steering Committee.

If I am elected, I commit to collaboratively creating organizing strategies that uplift us all.

Healthcare Staff

CAROLYN KUBE

I am running for re-election to the HELU Healthcare Staff Steering Committee seat because I believe deeply in HELU’s vision of building broad, member-driven coalitions of unions under the Higher Education umbrella. We are stronger together, and I am committed to continuing the work of strengthening HELU’s capacity and ensuring its structural and financial sustainability for the future.

Currently, I serve on the HELU Steering Committee, the Personnel Committee, and as Co-Chair of the Outreach Committee. I bring decades of union experience to this role. I am a medical technologist at Stony Brook University Hospital and have been an active member of United University Professions (UUP) for over 30 years. UUP represents faculty, healthcare workers, and staff across the State University of New York (SUNY) system. I currently serve as UUP’s Vice President for Professionals and am proud to advocate for our members every day.

Community Colleges

MARISSA JOHNSON VALENZUELA

I want to help bring more people, in particular more community colleges, into HELU. I want to build and expand on the successes my union has accomplished as a local and in regional, statewide, and national coalition. As I want in my three unit local, the Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia, I want union members across job categories to build the solidarity and savvy necessary to fight together and transform higher education into the life affirming sector it must be. Through my last term, I’ve been honored to work alongside so many committed and inspiring leaders from across the country. I have been proud to serve on the HELU Steering Committee in the community colleges role, and, if selected, I look forward to one more term before stepping down. This is work worth doing– let’s do it!

Statewide Systems

REBECCA GIVAN

The ongoing attacks from the Trump administration, building on years of degradation of higher education, demonstrate the importance of organizing from the bottom up to win colleges and universities that serve the common good. I have worked to implement HELU’s vision of a wall-to-wall, higher education labor movement, both at Rutgers where I serve as President of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, and coast-to-coast, as a HELU steering committee member. Our union represents full-time tenure track and non-tenure track faculty, graduate workers, postdocs and counselors, and works closely with unions representing adjunct faculty and staff. I hope to continue my work on the steering committee, recognizing challenges and blind spots. In my work with HELU I have co-chaired the Politics and Policy committee, and have worked closely with regional allies coordinating bargaining across the Northeast. This work links national policy-focused work, and the bottom-up work on our campuses. I am committed to moving our movement closer to HELU’s powerful vision for higher education.

Non-Collective Bargaining Advocacy Organizations

SHANNAN CLARK

My name is Shannan Clark, and I am seeking election to the HELU Steering Committee as its representative from non-collective bargaining advocacy organizations. I am currently a member of the board of Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education (SNDHE) with responsibility for administering the organization’s financial affairs, and I am also one of American Federation of Teachers Local 1904’s delegates to the Council of New Jersey State College Locals.

As a member of the Steering Committee, I will do my utmost to fight against the efforts of the Trump administration to destroy higher education in the United States. I am committed to building power for organized campus workers throughout American higher education. In addition, I will continue to be a strong proponent of higher education that serves the common good, with robust public support, tuition-free enrollment for undergraduates at public institutions, and democratic institutional governance.

DAVID MILROY

I have been advocating for part-time faculty since the mid ‘90s. I was chair and Dir, of Admin. of the California Part-time Faculty Association CPFA for several years. I now serve as the chair of the San Diego Adjunct Faculty Association, SDAFA, which promotes and helps PTers with the issues facing all contingents. SDAFA.Org. Thank you for your support.

JOHN HOLMES

I am seeking election to the HELU Steering Committee as its representative from the National Writers Union. I seek to bring the NWU in to assist in our organizing efforts, as I have already done by getting the NWU to support our ICWP campaign. Besides participating in that campaign and NCOC, I have also been a very active participant in the CTF as a Merritt College contingent who served four years on the EC of AFT #1603 representing contingents.

The path to fighting against Trump, for immigrants, against cutbacks and for contingents is mass action not lobbying, the most effective form, though difficult right now, being strike action. I oppose relying on the Democrats, we need a workers party. Successful mass action requires the broadest possible support from all unions, students, and the general community. In particular in the CTF I have worked for solidarity between part timers and contingents.

EMILY STEINLIGHT

Non-Collective Bargaining Jurisdiction Organizations

SHELLY BASKIN

I’m Shelly Baskin with United Campus Workers Southeast (UCWSE) – CWA Local 3821. We are a wall-to-wall union representing thousands of public sector higher ed workers in the southeast, where almost none of us have collective bargaining rights. Over the past several months I have worked with the HELU Budget and Finance Committee and I currently serve as the Finance and Operations Manager for UCWSE, where I oversee our Local’s finances and administrative infrastructure across our eight state units. In this role, I have helped UCWSE grow sustainably and ensured that members’ resources are managed responsibly and strategically. As as HELU steering committee member, I will bring the same accountability and organizing-centered vision to HELU’s work and help ensure we have the resources we need to win a better future for all workers.

EMILY STEINLIGHT

General Representative (any category) – two positions

Please scroll down to see all six candidates

SHELLY BASKIN

ANNE BALAY

I joined HELU with the words of my bargainer ringing in my ears: “What you are demanding is reasonable and just, but we will not win that until there is a national movement to change the structure of Higher Ed.”

ANKE WOLBERT

BRET BENJAMIN

SEAN O’BRIEN

I’ve served in HELU as a graduate worker, a contingent faculty member, and as academic staff. I’ve been here in three unions, serving part of that time as a Member-at-Large. I’ve chaired committees, overseen budgets, maintained our notes and history, and led innovative action in Michigan for our movement. My unique position has proved the importance of centering all workers and has allowed me to see the value of democratized power. But this isn’t about me. It’s about our future.

I will push Steering to facilitate an agenda of moral ambition guiding us toward the 2028 General Strike. If we’re going to overcome the crises before us, we must ground ourselves in a structure built on rank-and-file empowerment. We have to be a force for change within higher ed labor unions, creating a supermajority of locals that shares our vision of a wall-to-wall, coast-to-coast coalition.