In a letter to East West Chancellor M. Wasiullah Khan and Provost Madhu Jain, AFT President Randi Weingarten called on the university administration to "cease its intimidation practices immediately and work responsibly through the law to permit a democratic union election to go forward." 

The letter follows a special order of business passed unanimously by the delegates of the 81^st AFT Convention which denounced the university administration's actions.  In the letter, President Weingarten reiterates those concerns and asserts that:

Dismissing these faculty members from future appointments and requiring each faculty member seeking re-employment to submit to a one-on-one interview with the Chancellor can be seen as nothing short of retribution for organizing a union and intimidation of individual faculty members in an effort to stop the union election.

East-West spokespeople have suggested these actions have nothing to do with the union activity when speaking to the press.  While such claims are hard to believe, President Weingarten suggests that if the administration is:

sincere that these efforts are not attempts to stop adjunct faculty members at East-West from exercising their democratic right to a union election, we call on you to take a neutral position on the election and publicly state that the East-West administration will do nothing to interfere with the election.

You can read the full letter here.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has run a few pieces this morning that assess the current state of the academic workplace. The big draw here is their list of 97 "great colleges to work for," which highlights institutions with outstanding evaluations in a number of areas, including collaborative governance, compensation and benefits, professional/career development, and respect and appreciation, among other categories. It's hard to comment on how great a workplace any of these campuses are just from the brief write-ups, but the categories for evaluation do make a certain amount of intuitive sense. It'd be interesting to hear what you, dear reader, have to say about any of the institutions on the list.

One place that does seem like a great place to work - especially if you're not on the tenure-track - is Vancouver (BC) Community College. VCC is being held up as a model of equity and fairness in its employment of faculty, and with good reason. Through collective bargaining, the faculty at VCC has achieved a "regularization" process for adjunct faculty, providing important job security provisions for those who work at least half-time for 19 of 24 months. It also provides equity in the way of compensation by pegging part-time pay to what full-timers make - if you work half-time, you'd make half of what a full-timer would make. Such provisions provide an unheard of level of economic stability for adjunct faculty at VCC, making it a rarity in both Canada and the States. Another feather in VCC's "great place to work" cap? It's in Vancouver.

The final piece in the Chronicle covers life at the top of the academic heap - on the tenure track. The takeaway from this article isn't how things have changed from the "golden age" of academia, but rather what the impact of on-going disinvestment in higher education and a radically changed academic staffing structure is having for those on the tenure track, as well as for those who aspire to it. The anecdotes in the story have been well-catalogued here: a decline in the number of tenure-track positions has increased competition, and these competitive pressures continue through the tenure-review process with an increased emphasis on generating publications and prestige. Once tenured, this group of faculty is saddled with numerous administrative responsibilities on top of their research and teaching responsibilities. Funding for research is becoming increasingly scarce, even for those at the top - to say nothing of those at lower rungs who desperately need the professional support necessary to advance in their careers.

We want to take one more look back at the 81^st AFT Convention in Seattle, WA to take stock of important higher education resolutions that passed the full convention.  We already reported that the convention took up a Special Order of Business denouncing the anti-union actions of the East-West University administration.  You can read the full resolution here.

In addition, three other higher education resolutions came to the floor and were approved.  The first resolution dealt with Advancing Student Success in Higher Education which you can read more about over at our sister site What Should Count?  The convention also gave its full support to the resolution to Promote AFT's Report on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education which is, in part, an effort to:

"encourage local higher education affiliates to engage in activities that promote the hiring and retention of faculty from underrepresented groups on their campuses [including] utilizing the AFT Faculty and College Excellence (FACE) campaign to promote better faculty jobs on campus through political advocacy and collective bargaining."

And last but not least, the convention unanimously supported the resolution on the Academic Staffing and the FACE Campaign: Maintaining Momentum.  This resolution sets forth the current conditions we face and then goes on to resolve that:

"the American Federation of Teachers recognize that strengthening investment in all aspects of academic staffing including improvements in salaries, benefits and job security for contingent faculty is more important than ever in a time when enrollments are growing and the importance of a college education is increasingly accepted."

This resolve is followed by a series of detailed actions AFT will pursue, and we hope FACE Talk readers will join us in these efforts.

We are really just getting back in full swing here post AFT Convention.  For those who were not able to join us in Seattle, WA, we want to look back at a few key highlights and share those with you.  Let's start with a couple important keynote speeches.  First up is AFT President Randi Weingarten who addressed the convention during the opening session and outlined how tough the last two years has been for all educators and public employees.  More importantly, Pres. Weingarten addressed what AFT has been doing to protect those jobs and to "save public education … not as it is today, or as we knew it in the past … but as we know it ought to be."

It has been some time since our last post looking at the expansion of for-profit colleges and universities, when I promised to take up the question: "So what? Should we care about the particular set of circumstances that has led to this expansion?" My short answer is yes. The longer answer is after the jump.