Who Will Be Left to Hold Up the Ivory Towers?

Fighting For Themselves, Or The Future of Higher Education?

 

 

Universities are facing not one but many crises. Budgets are shrinking. Enrollment has diminished. And their workforce is well—fed up.

 

Unrest among faculty, staff, and student workers is rampant, resulting in mass resignations, strikes, and demands for living wages and safe working conditions. We’ve seen strikes in the US at Portland State University, Columbia, Kenyon University, the California College of Arts, and abroad in Britain and the UK. University staff has flocked to social media to share disparaging stories, critical memes, and satirical photo contests, crowdsourcing the worst examples of dangerous or unclean work environments.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought what many saw as an opportunity for innovative systemic change. Still, as things on campuses continued business as usual, individuals within the labor movement have decided that it’s now or never. For decades, those working in academia were among a population considered to be unorganizable. But continued budget and pension cuts, unfair wages, and eliminated positions have pushed university students, staff, and faculty over the edge.

 

With Nowhere To Go, They’ll Rise

 

 

With strikes on college campuses at a seven-year high—union organizing is gaining momentum, and now chapters from numerous states are discussing plans to organize on a more widespread level. Through shared tactics and strategies, pooling of resources like legal teams and legislature drafts…they’re making headway…one following after the other.

 

Higher Education Labor United (HELU) is a national committee representing higher ed workers. HELU works to solidify higher education as a social good and universal right. During the summer of 2021, the organization began as an initial effort to advocate for fair contracts by faculty, staff, and students out of Rutgers University. Since, the organization has grown into a national coalition of people working towards a future of higher education that “prioritizes people and the common good over profit and prestige.” Their platform, endorsed by over 100 local unions that represent nearly half a million workers, sees the current crisis as an opportunity to re-envision the future of higher education and reinvest in our universities as educational, economic, social, and cultural anchors in communities.

 

Ariana Jacob, a faculty member at Portland State University, was introduced to her campus adjunct union by a close friend in 2015. She learned of HELU after she connected with another adjunct organizer during the summer of 2021. After HELU’s first summit, Jacob became fascinated with the community that emerged.

 

“I became obsessed with the union partly because as a person who comes out of social practice art, unions are fundamentally collectives and operate in a group quality.”

HELU and its members are currently involved with numerous contract negotiations, advocating for legislative change, and initiating public discourse and resource banks for union efforts across the country.

“We need to be having public conversations about the fact that higher ed is imploding. It is an absolutely essential element of a functioning democracy, so without functioning, accessible higher education, democracy itself is at risk,” said Jacob.

 

A Modest Request

 

 

It may look like the threat of unionization or strike is somewhat extreme from the outside. Still, the cushy salaries and lofty benefits typically associated with university positions are more scarce than they may seem. As educational funding is slashed year after year, universities have cut corners across departments, using temporary solutions like adjunct professors or short-term contracts as permanent stop-gaps—leaving fewer opportunities for young professional educators to find quality, lasting employment. Even those who have dedicated themselves to a lifelong career in academia are at risk, with pensions in the UK actively being reduced by 50%, and opportunities for upward mobility are nonexistent.

 

A recent report by the American Federation of Nationals on the quality of work and life for contingent and adjunct instructors shows that 25% of part-time faculty earn less than $25,000 annually. Only 20% claim to cover basic monthly expenses with wages earned from teaching.

 

“Forty years ago, 70 percent of academic employees were tenured or on the tenure track. Today, that figure has flipped; 75 percent of faculty are not eligible for tenure, and 47 percent hold part-time positions. Meanwhile, the number of management staff per full-time equivalent student at public institutions and the salary outlay to management staff per FTE student at those institutions have increased more than 18 percent and 24 percent respectively between academic years 2011-12 and 2018-19.”

 

In Pursuit of Something Better

 

 

This year, universities have plans to negotiate thousands of contracts across the United States. And as unsavory as university administrators seem to find collective bargaining efforts, the requests emerging from the unions are shockingly…modest.

 

While they vary, the majority of them include negotiations for things like fair living wages for university staff, student workers, and adjunct faculty; unemployment benefits for those affected by budget cuts, furloughs, or contract expirations; safe working environments and provision of appropriate PPE; the implementation of proper procedures and repercussions for individuals who face discrimination and harassment at work; and more long-term investment in faculty and staff through revised or reclassified contracts.

 

Jewel Tomasula is a Ph.D. candidate in biology at Georgetown University and the founding President of the Georgetown Alliance of Graduate Employees (GAGE). The alliance’s mission is to push for graduate work that is more accessible, inclusive, and equitable while advocating for the health and security of graduate workers. Soon after organizing in 2018, GAGE completed its initial round of negotiations, including an increase in 9-month contract rates for Ph.D. students from $29,000 to $32,500 with a guaranteed 2% annual raise. While their bargaining efforts did prioritize a living wage for student workers in DC, they also included stipulations that would provide funding for student emergency relief and a donation match by Georgetown for any contributions made by GAGE to the campus food pantry.

 

As GAGE enters another round of negotiations this year, its proposals continue to seek improved working conditions while prioritizing educational accessibility for the next generation of students. The union has discussed bargaining for more comprehensive healthcare options and rights for the international student community.

 

“There is an interest in ideas [that look to] bargaining for the common good. We support resources that benefit the whole community, [rather than those] that just funnel into grad workers’ pockets. We often ask ourselves, how do we use our negotiation process to bargain for resources that benefit the community?” said Tomasula.

 

In what other ways can the demands of union organizing positively impact the campus environment? The answer is, in many more ways than one.

 

Providing adjunct and contingent faculty with fair, living wages improves the quality of life for those that historically interface with a university’s most impressionable, first-year students. With more time to invest in student relationships, academic support, and innovative teaching, part-time faculty directly contribute to student retention, increasing student enrollment, and justification for more permanent teaching tracks.

 

“We have to remember that university working conditions are student conditions,” said Tomasula. 

 

Substantial investment in research funds and graduate and post-graduate researchers boosts research capabilities, gaining national and international recognition and, therefore, more competitive student recruitment. 

 

Increased shared governance, particularly when it comes to significant decision-making, ensures that resolutions, no matter how tough, are proposed to consider the public good. 

 

And finally, exploration of reduced tuition rates or efforts to reduce student debt recognizes these debts’ burden on students and their families and helps reinvest in social mobility.

 

No Stopping Now

 

 

HELU’s next objective is to outline how their values have a meaningful shared interest with the community. The more clearly they can bridge connections between the higher education crisis and its impact on individuals beyond university staff, the more progress they’ll make towards building better educational futures. 

 

“The issues that modern-day universities face permeate out into their neighboring communities and affect them intimately. The more community support they can garner, the larger their impact on future negotiations, legislative policy, and political organizing,” said Jacob. 

 

And if university administrations continue to turn a blind eye? 

 

Well, they’re in for a long fight.