The AAUP/AFT Summer Institute Can Change a Life
Freedom requires organization, creativity, knowledge, and lots of other things these gatherings have on offer.
It’s not hyperbole to say that the 2017 AAUP Summer Institute in Cincinnati changed my academic career. I attended an incredibly thorough and inspiring session by Jorge Tiede on AAUP policy and the Redbook. I also met Ralph Wilson and Sam Parsons, then with UnKoch My Campus, who led a seminar on how to track dark money in higher education. These two sessions informed my work on Faculty First Responders, evolved into a long-term collaboration with Ralph, which includes our book Free Speech and Koch Money, and ultimately led to working with Joerg on a proposal to the Mellon Foundation that created the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. This is one of the reasons I was so excited to attend the AAUP/AFT Summer Institute in Atlanta this year.
This year, an unprecedented number of people attended the Summer Institute. More than four hundred AAUP and AFT activists arrived at Morehouse College, July 16-19, for a packed four days of panels, discussion sessions, and workshops. From beginning to end, the focus was clear: Organize! Organize! Organize!
One of the most memorable moments was the lunchtime plenary featuring AFT Secretary-Treasurer Fedrick Ingram, who reminded us that, “As academics, we don’t go seeking politics. But politics has come looking for us.” He summed up what is at stake by noting that when “they put the wrestling lady in charge of the Department of Education,” we should take it as “a personal insult” and an explicit attempt to “kill the dream of our profession.” Ingram was clear that, in no uncertain terms, we are facing an authoritarian regime, and “What do authoritarians do? They break things. They break rules. Then they break people.” The only viable response to such threats is organizing with our colleagues, our students, and our communities.
This year’s Summer Institute was intentionally designed to make sure that academic workers left with the knowledge and skills we need to engage in successful campus organizing. The pre-conference included an in-person Skills to Win training, a continuation of the AAUP’s Organize Every Campus initiative, which has been providing organizing training to AAUP members. Skills To Win seminars are facilitated by professional trainers using the curriculum developed by Jane McAlevey. The training provides campus activists concrete strategies for conceptualizing their workplace as a site to be organized (not just mobilized), including how to identify and recruit leaders, have one-on-one conversations, and build political power. I attended a virtual training in the spring, spread over 6 weeks, and came away motivated, energized, and thinking more strategically about how to organize on my campus. I heard similar excitement from those who had taken the training at the Summer Institute.
The Summer Institute also provided panels on building infrastructure and strategically thinking about issue campaigns. As president of the Trinity College AAUP chapter, I often find our campus chapter getting caught up responding to crises rather than organizing to win specific gains. The panel “How to Increase Membership in Your Local/Chapter” offered a number of ideas about how to build chapter capacity to carry out such work, including developing a campus AAUP newsletter, the importance of one-on-one conversations, and ideas for communicating past successes. The session “How Your Advocacy Chapter Can Act Like a Union” focused on designing issue campaigns. We were introduced to the idea of designing a campaign using the metaphor of a mountain, which includes specific phases (building a foundation, a kickoff, escalation, using the strength to win a victory, and then consolidating power). We talked about a variety of tactics that could be incorporated into a campaign. We broke into small working groups with similar sized institutions and mapped out a possible campaign. It became immediately clear that it takes a long time to decide on an issue, much less design a campaign. However, the experience of working through the handout was incredibly helpful.
This workshop made me consider how one might organize campus campaigns that center academic freedom. During a plenary presentation the following day, Rana Jaleel, Chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, helped me draw the connection, stating clearly that: “Academic freedom is a working condition.” She reminded us that “Academic freedom is always a terrain of struggle. Therefore, we need to fight for it and not cede ground to those who would weaponize academic freedom against workers.”
One of the most inspiring panels was on how to defend international students and colleagues. César Moreno-Pérez (AFT Human Rights and Community Relations) centered the human costs of the Trump administration’s $350 million deportation machine, which is “going after parents, workers, even US citizens.” The website Disappeared in America makes this case so powerfully, telling the personal story of those being abducted and deported. Corrine Kentor (Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration) offered a detailed overview of the practical steps campuses can take to protect undocumented students, faculty, and staff, including:
Establish or relaunch an immigration working group
Review and update institutional policies and practices
Develop clear communications guidelines
Promote holistic support services and career guidance on and off campus
Expand or develop referrals to legal screening and consultation. (For example, Cornell’s Path2Papers has helped vulnerable students transition to a more permanent status.)
Andrea Vásquez (Professional Staff Congress/CUNY) gave a powerful presentation about how PSC has organized with local religious and civil rights groups to protect those being abducted from New York City courtrooms. She talked about how the union has rallied to bring trained observers into the court building to monitor ICE presence and to systematically collect contact information of immigrants entering and exiting, making it possible to follow up with those abducted.
The final day included a civil disobedience training, based on the knowledge that it will become increasingly necessary for us to put our bodies on the line.
Thanks to everyone who organized the Summer Institute, led sessions, provided the logistics, and participated. There’s no end to the work that needs to be done, but I am confident that there are now more of us who have clear ideas about how to organize smarter and with greater focus. It’s an honor to be a member of an organization demonstrating clarity and courage during these dark and difficult times. When we fight, we win!
