Texas AAUP-AFT Delegation – Brian Evans, Pat Heintzelman,
Jim Klein, Teresa Klein, Polly Strong, and Cary Wintz

South Carolina AAUP Delegation – Mark Blackwell, Dave Bruzina,
Carol Harrison, Adam Houle, Sharon O’Kelley, and Shawn Smolen-Morton

June 20, 2024

The Texas delegation at a reception after a good day of discussing collective action for higher education. From left to right, Jim Klein, Pauline Strong, Cary Wintz, Pat Heintzelman, Brian Evans, Teresa Klein, representing AAUP Members at Del Mar College, UT Austin, Texas Southern, and Lamar University. Brian, Jim, and Teresa are Texas AAUP Officers.

The 2024 AAUP Conference and Biennial Meeting, which is held every other year, offered seminars and panel discussions on academic freedom and shared governance as well as voting on constitutional amendments and resolutions.  Every four years, including 2024, officer elections are held.  About 200 people attended the June 13-16 meeting in Washington, DC.  Polly Strong and Lauren Gutterman tweeted updates @TexasAAUP.

Here’s a quick summary from the seminars and panel discussions:

• Dr. Isaac Kamola, from the AAUP Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom, summarized “Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and Legislative Attacks on Higher Education, 2021–2023” (May 2024).  His presentation mirrored his article “State laws threaten to erode academic freedom in US higher education”.
• UCLA Law Professor Taifha Natalee Alexander presented their CRT Forward Project that tracks policies and laws for K-12 and higher ed to ban CRT and related issues such as banning DEI.  They track Lexis and Westlaw legal databases as well as 4,000 newspapers, and publish info at an eighth grade level to reach a wide audience.
• Dr. Patricia Okker, President of New College in Florida until removed by board members appointed by Gov. DeSantis.  New College is a public Liberal Arts College.  Pres. Okker says attacks on academic freedom are political theater.  Shift from “defend” to “champion” “academic freedom” and share positive outcomes of academic freedom grounded in student experiences.  The reason for academic freedom is the search for truth.  Let’s take back the phrase “search for truth”.
• Mark Bostic, Director AAUP Organizing and Services, led a discussion with state conferences.  Conference agendas, efforts, and structures vary widely in reaction to state politics.  The AFT-AAUP affiliation has benefited some conferences like Texas and distressed conferences like Oregon, but has had no effect on conferences like South Carolina.  Many Collective Bargaining Chapters report redundancy of services, differences in mission, and increasing dues due to the AFT affiliation.
• Malori Musselman, AAUP Organizer, led a discussion with advocacy chapters.  Members shared organizing struggles, conflicts with administration, and successes.  Several chapters formed recently or are in the process of forming, and were seeking advice.  Malori offered tips and directed chapters to training opportunities. 

Here’s a quick summary of committee reports:

• Treasurer Rudy Fichtenbaum reported declining revenue, increasing expenses, and drawing from cash reserves to balance the budget.  Please see the Appendix.
• AAUP Vice-President Paul Davis reported on organizing. With support from the AFT, 16 new AAUP Collective Bargaining Chapters have been founded in the last two years, representing 4,000 new members.  AFT spent $12M in the effort, and AFT and AAUP will split the dues equally.  Paul stressed the conversion of advocacy chapters to collective bargaining and the affiliation’s focus on large institutions.
• Committee T on College and University Governance.  Two institutions, New College and Spartanburg Community College, were placed on the list of AAUP Sanctioned Institutions due to severe departures from AAUP principles of shared governance.  Committee T Chair Afshan Jafar reported interference from both AFT and the AAUP Council in the committee’s work.  Their work was delayed due to the staff shortage.

Here’s a quick summary from the Assembly of Delegates (94 delegates):

• Elected President Todd Wolfson (wolfsont@gmail.com), VP Rotua Lumbantobing (rltobing@gmail.com), Secretary-Treasurer Danielle Aubert, and At-Large Members Chenjerai Kumanyiki and Paul Davis.  Here’s an interview with Todd & Rotua.  Their four-year terms began June 16, 2024.
• Passed a Constitutional Amendment to allow the Association to compensate officers and Council members by compensating their institutions for release time from teaching or other assigned duties or by compensating them directly at an equivalent rate for their participation in Association matters.  The Constitution continues to allow reimbursement “for reasonable expenses incurred in connection with the performance of their duties” for officers and Council members.
• Passed a resolution “Divest Pension Funds from Fossil Fuels and Reinvest in Renewable Energy”.
• Advocated with the AAUP Council to lift the staff hiring freeze ordered by Interim Director Nancy Long in January.  At present, 30 of 60 staff positions remain unfilled.  Hardest hit units are organizing, communications, membership, and government relations.   This affects the work of the AAUP and impedes the ability of members and chapters to advance the mission of the AAUP.

After the above discussion of the impact of the staff hiring freeze, several AAUP members formed an ad-hoc committee.  The committee’s first action was to ask the newly elected leaders to address the severe staff shortage on June 19, 2024.  The committee is Jill Dumesnil, Brian Evans, Emily Ford, Johanna Foster, Nicole Gallagher, Afshan Jafar, Bethany Letiecq, Ernesto Longa, Harmon Oskar, Cristina Restad, and Saranna Thornton.

AAUP delegations from Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas met to discuss plans to organize together.  All of our Legislatures will reconvene in January.  We hope to hold virtual meetings as well as a hybrid biennial meeting starting Summer 2025 to alternate with the biennial National AAUP Meetings.  Virginia AAUP will also be joining.

We would like to thank Irene Mulvey for her service as AAUP President 2020-2024.  We are grateful for her leadership including:

• Affiliating with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
• Providing AAUP guidance during the pandemic
• Expanding Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure to include disciplinary expertise in racial equity
• Turning AAUP into a more nimble organization with faster responses to crises
• Securing $1.5M in funding from the Mellon Foundation for the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom; and
• Issuing the Statement on Legislative Threats to Academic Freedom: Redefinitions of Antisemitism and Racism.

AAUP membership is about 42000, with 32000 in collective bargaining units and 10000 in advocacy chapters.  In Texas and across the South, all of our chapters are advocacy chapters.  States that allow collective bargaining units in the public sector might have collective bargaining and advocacy chapters.  Ohio has both.  Florida only has advocacy chapters.

Appendix: Treasurer’s Report

The fiscal year is the calendar year.  Treasurer Rudy Fichtenbaum reported declining revenue and drawing from cash reserves to balance the budget.

Revenue	2023	2022	2023 vs. 2022
Coll. Barg. Dues	6,222,562	6,376,861	(154,299)
Advocacy Dues	1,733,077	1,799,693	(66,616)
AFT Support	1,807,127	1,522,917	284,210
Other Revenue	195,796	352,357	(156,561)
TOTAL	9,958,562	10,051,828	(93,266)

AFT Support was budgeted at $3,769,381 in 2023 per the AAUP affiliation agreement.

Expenses	2023	2022	2023 vs. 2022
Salaries & Benefits	5,497,811	5,246,762	251,049
Contracted Services	1,099,768	842,860	256,909
Joint Organizing	38,707	124,079	(85,373)
Business	236,314	443,155	(206,841)
Meetings & Travel	647,610	713,410	(65,800)
AFT Per Capita	1,965,408	909,176	1,056,232
Other	1,116,409	1,038,389	128,020
TOTAL	10,652,027	9,317,831	1,334,196

In Fiscal Year 2023, AAUP had 17,112,114 in Assets and 6,366,405 in Liabilities, which gives 10,745,708 in Net Assets.