From the FWC Executive Committee
Hi folks--
Solidarity--showing up for each other--is what will get us through this crisis in higher education and in our nation. But we are all being tested, so I thought I'd give a little FWC history as inspiration.
Solidarity produced our current levels of compensation. Fairfield University faculty salaries were once very low, but faculty organized the Faculty Salary Committee back in 1972 to begin to discuss compensation with the administration. They organized the Faculty Welfare Committee as a chapter of the AAUP by 1989—unifying the faculty, building committee structures, and even picketing around Bellarmine, walking a circle with signs. A culture of resistance, of awareness, of transparency, and true shared governance was built slowly.
This is what your paycheck means: solidarity and organizing through committees and years of long tedious meetings, using the tools offered by the American Association of University Professors, including the annual salary survey, which we have used as a benchmark to tie our current compensation to national averages.
A piece of that history hangs in Donnarumma on the first floor, at the corner near the elevator: a hand-stenciled sign with the letters “FWC," signed by colleagues who helped to found the organization and who risked a lot for it—together. Most of those folks who signed it are retired, but it's an important reminder of solidarity. Our power is about more than our paychecks or individual careers. It is built by showing up for each other and working hard on these documents that form our safety net, backed up by the power of solidarity. Our power lies in the history of agreements, our structures, our documents, and organizing, and our ability to hear and integrate various perspectives into agendas and action plans that take the viewpoints of faculty across ranks into account. Unity is the goal, because that creates power.
Faculty power is not the same as "fast" corporate power or the power of managers and administrators. Our power is the slow power of the collective, requiring conversation and debate. It can be frustrating, but it is democratic—and this value is more important than ever at the local level as national institutions are stripped for parts.
FWC Executive Committee members are in the process of building networks to organize among Jesuit universities and across universities in Connecticut. We need help! If you can spare half a day on April 5 to attend a conference at Wesleyan, please contact me at shuber@fairfield.edu, as we need representation there.
All the best,
Sonya for the FWC Executive Committee
Crisis at the Library
We've learned that the study and stacks area on the 2nd floor of the DiMenna-Nyselius Library is slated to be replaced very soon with six classrooms, removing many desks/tables used by students and a significant amount of books and media to do so (over 25% of the book collection/65,000 volumes.) We have heard that measurements are already being taken and that construction is slated to begin immediately after the last final exam. This move did not go through governance channels or the Faculty Library Committee, nor were library staff consulted; the library dean was informed about the move immediately before break.
We recognize the equal and urgent need for classroom space. However, when decisions are made without respecting our shared governance model, we slowly dissolve the shared mission and common work that binds faculty, staff, students and administrators together. I implore those who empower these decisions to make them transparently, utilizing our established handbook committees.
Contact has been made between the Library Committee and the Academic Council for official responses, which are being formulated. We believe there are alternate spaces to build temporary classrooms on campus, including but not limited to the lounge area of the old DSB building, currently being used as a storage space for catering equipment. Semi-permanent classroom trailers would be much preferred to the elimination of the heart of scholarly work on our campus.
Student surveys have revealed that students "want more group study rooms. They want seating to do individual work and collaborative work. We have both qualitative and quantitative data on this. Some of the feedback was collected in December 2024 and also from the student library advisory board over the past several years. Despite sharing this data, there was no reversing the decision.” The noise of six classes letting out at once will negatively impact the little remaining quiet space on campus.
What you can do: We are asking for personal statements from students, staff, alumni, and faculty in the google doc about the impact of this short-sighted move. Please add to the document and share it if you like. It also includes links to studies showing the importance of including all stakeholders in library space planning,
Academic Freedom Event
Tues., March 25 @ 12:30 in Frederickson Lab, Library
Bring your lunch and join us! We will be talking about this central tenet of academic life and how it is under attack around the country, including at Columbia University, where Palestinian graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested on March 8 by ICE in violation of his constitutional rights and his green card was declared to be revoked. (you can sign here on a document created by Scholars for Social Justice to condemn this action.) Activists took over Trump Tower to protest this move on March 13.
At this event, we will share basic background on academic freedom, the central mission of AAUP as declared in 1940, and share a handout with references to our Fairfield documents. We will talk about the extent to which academic freedom is protected across ranks and about the principle of civility, which also advocates for the ability of faculty to participate as citizens with "extramural utterances" on public issues. We will discuss On Institutional Neutrality, which reaffirms that institutional neutrality is neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it Other resources include AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom and a recorded webinar on Academic Freedom Basics.
- March 27 at 7 p.m. Eastern: AAUP all-member meeting. Register here.
- March 24 at 3 p.m. Eastern: PEN America Digital Safety Series: What Can I Do to Help My Colleagues? How to Be an Ally Online. Register here.
- The April 8 “Fund Don’t Freeze – Trump’s Cuts Kill: Protect Our Healthcare, Research, and Education” day of action will bring together our fellow unions and higher ed organizations under the banner of Labor for Higher Education. We will say no to federal cuts that pose an existential threat to our work and will have long-lasting impacts on everyone in our country. Join the leader meeting and member meeting to learn more.
- On April 17, AAUP members and our allies will rally to defend the freedom to teach and learn and send a clear message: Higher ed workers are the best advocates for shaping the present and future of higher education. The AAUP has joined the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed (CAHE) for a Day of Action for Higher Education that will feature rallies, teach-ins, walkouts, tabling, and union membership drives. Let CAHE know what you're planning for April 17! Record your event here. You can also join a planning call for April 17 with CAHE on March 28 at 3 p.m. ET. RSVP here.
April 5: Connecticut in-person AAUP State Conference on Defending Higher Education, Wesleyan College
Saturday, April 5, 2025 (9:30 am - 4:00 pm)
Wesleyan University, The Frank Center for Public Affairs, Middletown, CT
Join us for the Connecticut State Conference-AAUP Meeting for panels and presentations on organizing strategies for collective bargaining and advocacy chapters, academic freedom in the current moment, CT state legislative budgets, and more!
Speakers include:
Free and open to AAUP members and non-members. Program and registration details to follow. Reach out to Flo Hatcher, Connecticut State Conference Executive Director, by email (keith.hatcher@gmail.com) with any questions.
From AAUP National
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For over fifty years, the AAUP has been fundamentally committed to ensuring that all students in all subjects are provided the full, fair, and honest education they deserve—that they have the freedom to learn. The AAUP holds that in order for colleges and universities to fulfill their public mission, they must endeavor not only to eliminate discrimination but to redress the persistent inequalities created by both past and present discriminatory practices and systems. As we noted in the statement On Eliminating Discrimination and Achieving Equality in Higher Education, “discriminatory attacks on efforts to advance knowledge about race, gender, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability are inseparable from a larger and even more dangerous campaign against core academic values—including shared governance, academic freedom, and tenure—and learning itself.”
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The Trump administration and many state governments are accelerating attacks on academic freedom, shared governance, and higher education as a public good. Information and resources to help in this fight are being added below as they are developed.
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We promote faculty welfare, broadly defined, through chapter programs and activities designed to advance academic freedom, advance the economic and professional status of the faculty, encourage faculty participation in governance, and inform the community about AAUP standards and policy statements to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good.
