The last twenty-four hours have been amazing! Sixty-five faculty leaders from 21 states met in Los Angeles this weekend to build a coalition.
This first meeting of its kind was called by the California Faculty Association, because their leadership recognizes we can all benefit by working together. Faculty need to speak with a single national voice. Insidehighered.com's lead story today describes the conditions we know so well in South Dakota.
The faculty here represented community colleges, four-year institutions and research universities, from urban and rural areas, from Vermont to Washington State, from Minnesota to New Mexico and points in between. It included locals affiliated with the NEA, AFT, and AAUP. Those who have merged union, those with dual membership, and independent locals. These individuals, who are the top officers of their respective associations, represent colleges with tens of thousands of faculty and probably more than a million students.
I did not think it possible, but in less than 24 hours, we agreed to launch a national campaign to protect quality higher education in the U.S. This morning, we analyzed our opponent's methods and assumptions. We also learned about each others' successes and failures. By midday, we brainstormed action steps to ensure that faculty have a voice in the changes that are occurring in higher education at the national level.
By mid-afternoon, we agreed on several actions, including a formal press conference to be held later this spring in Washington, DC to announce formally the creation of this coalition of state and local faculty unions to reclaim the American Dream of accessible, affordable quality higher education.
One breakout group--now a committee--identified potential allies, including student groups, other labor unions, alumni, and most importantly faculty unions from those states who were not represented today. Another group will begin to work with legislative liaisons from AFT, NEA, and AAUP to identify bills before Congress around which we can rally. I was most intrigued to hear civil rights leader Robert Moses is encouraging the adoption of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would make quality education a constitutional right. Learn more.
We also agreed on other steps before the formal creation of our campaign. Another committee, one I was glad to join, is seeking comments and improvements on the Statement of Principles originally developed by our CFA sponsors and others. You will get an official invitation to voice your opinion, but I provide you with the draft here. I encourage you to think of ways we can boil these down to simple talking points to use when we speak with various groups about higher education policy.
Finally, we agreed to propose a National Day of Action to our locals. However, after CFA announced they were organizing "Take Class Action" on and around April 13, we all got excited. We asked if we could adopt their logo and participate as well. They were pleased others wanted to join them. Each local can develop their own event, but we were asked to videotape our activities so we can assemble a record of the events.
A number of ideas were floated, including teach-ins, teach-outs, email petition drives, on-campus rallies, and hands-across-campus. At SDSU, I think we should reach out to our students and focus our event on the change in the instructional ratio. For the first time in South Dakota, students now pay more than half of the costs of their own education.
