Miami AAUP Advocacy Chapter is organizing a faculty union, the Faculty Alliance of Miami! In January 2022, FAM concluded almost two years of 1-on-1 conversations during which we listened to the hopes and concerns of the vast majority of Miami faculty across colleges and campuses and learned that our colleagues overwhelmingly support unionizing. On February 2, 2022, FAM launched the public stage of the campaign to unionize, confirming the support of a strong majority of the faculty for FAM’s mission. In summer 2022, FAM organizers will be driving your union authorization cards to the State Employment Relations Board in Columbus.
Why unionize? Here’s what you told us:
- You want genuine participation in shared governance and less top-down decision-making
- You want clear promotion guidelines, fair compensation, and more job security
- You are upset over the 200+ colleagues who lost their jobs during a pandemic in 2020, despite Miami’s continuing financial health
- You value teaching, research, scholarship, and service that matters, but have less and less time for what you care about
Individually, faculty lack the power to change the current situation. But here’s the good news: together, you and your colleagues can change the balance. And an overwhelming majority of you told us you strongly support organizing a union!
FAM can negotiate binding agreements that support shared governance, economic security, academic freedom, and student learning. You and your colleagues deserve to participate in creating working conditions that support Miami’s educational mission and protect our teacher-scholar tradition. The time has come to join the 10 unionized public universities in Ohio–and to fight to save the teacher-scholar model that we cherish at Miami.
History
Miami’s AAUP Advocacy Chapter—the largest advocacy chapter in Ohio—was launched on April 29, 2015, in Upham 1. The launch featured a speech by the AAUP National President Rudy Fichtenbaum, who spoke to a crowd of about 200 people. Members are from every instructional division and include University Distinguished Professors, adjunct faculty, department chairs, instructors, teaching professors, lecturers, clinical faculty, visiting assistant professors, graduate students, emeriti, and many tenure-line and tenured professors. Read our story.
Contact Us
Please write any member of Steering or miamiaaup [at] gmail [dot] com.
Mission
We promote faculty welfare, broadly defined, through programs and activities that support academic freedom, advance the economic and professional status of the entire faculty, and encourage faculty participation in governance. We partner with students and staff to advocate for a fair and just environment for work and study, and we uphold Miami’s core educational mission as a contribution to the common good.
Addendum, March 1, 2017:
In the wake of recent presidential orders concerning immigration and transgender rights, and as part of its advocacy for the educational mission of the university, Miami AAUP Advocacy Chapter affirms its unequivocal support for the right of all members of the Miami community to have space and time to pursue learning in safety and with full freedom of movement.We condemn acts and words that denigrate and discriminate against members of our community on the basis of national origin, religion, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, age, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
We encourage all departments, programs, and individuals at Miami to explore the many ways that diversity strengthens our community. We call on all parts of the community, including Miami leadership, to commit to doing everything in their power to affirm and protect the human and civil rights of members of the Miami community—such as faculty, staff and students who identify as Black, Middle Eastern, Latinx, Jewish, or transgendered—who may experience increased vulnerability.
Leadership
Please use our contact form, write miamiaaup@gmail.com, contact any of the below, if you need assistance or have information for or questions about the Chapter.
STEERING COMMITTEE
- President: Cathy Wagner, Professor, Department of English, Oxford
- Treasurer: Kevin Bush, Professor, Department of Family Science and Social Work, Oxford
- Secretary: Theresa Kulbaga, Professor, Department of English and Department of Languages, Literatures & Writing, Hamilton Campus
- Outreach Committee Co-Chairs: Michele Boone, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Oxford, and Mack Hagood, Robert H. and Nancy J. Blayney Associate Professor, Department of Media, Journalism & Film, Oxford
- Membership Director: Deborah Lyons, Associate Professor, Department of French, Italian & Classics, Oxford
- Member-at-Large: Eric Luczaj, Associate Professor, Department of Computer and Information Technology, Middletown
ADVISORY COUNCIL
- Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Oxford
- Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Global and Intercultural Studies (American Studies), Oxford
- Bill Modrow, Head of Special Collections & Archives, Miami University Libraries
- Ann Rypstra, Distinguished Professor, Department of Biology, Hamilton