AAUP Against Austerity

FOR THE LOVE OF BUCKNELL!

Our Vision

AAUP Bucknell participants and members are among the most dedicated workers at Bucknell. Our vision of the university is bold and comprehensive. Here are a few:

Workplace Democracy

I would like to work at a Bucknell where participatory, bottom-up democracy shapes the policy decisions that, in turn, shape the university.

Not for Profit but for Care

A better Bucknell offers better working conditions — including pay and democratic decision making — for all staff. It is a university that is genuinely committed to the liberal arts and to taking care of its constituencies, rather than an organization chiefly concerned with market competition and profitability.

A Liberal Arts Education for the Future

A robust reinvestment in . . . the value of a liberal arts education as the most durable, adaptable, and marketable of curricula in a fast-changing world. We abandon this vision to the peril of our institution and the peril of our students, and the gains of a pre-professional realignment of our institutional priorities will have short-term gains that weaken the institution in the long run. This vision requires decision making about finances to be more balanced in rationale rather than grounded solely on areas offering the most perceived opportunity for revenue growth.

Higher Education for the Common Good

A better Bucknell will maintain its values in a broad and liberal education for its students. It will not cater solely to market forces in the allocation of resources. It will treat its employees with dignity and respect their contributions to building and strengthening the community. It will defend the institution of the university in American life and the academic freedom and scholarly endeavors that give it legitimacy.

Dignity and Respect in Wages and Benefits

I envision a place where all staff make a living wage, are adequately compensated for the work they do, and treated with dignity. I also envision working at a place that values research, service, and teaching equally, and ensures that everyone has reasonable post-retirement benefits.

Parity among Students, Staff, and Faculty

A better Bucknell is one where the faculty and staff are held in the same level of regard as the students.

Tenure for All

A better Bucknell grants tenure for all employees. It engages in participatory budgeting that involves all faculty, staff and students. It is a university where deliberative workplace democracy for all is the highest goal and integral to its liberal arts education.

Academic Rigor and Integrity

A better Bucknell is a quality educational institute in which all faculty and staff are aware of our shared educational mission.

A Private University for the Public Good

A better Bucknell is a university that is responsive to the needs of our community, broadly defined over time and space.

A Better Bucknell Now for a Better Bucknell Tomorrow

A better Bucknell increases transparency and communication . . . its commitment to supporting and growing the liberal arts base of our university . . . the endowment drawdown to allow us to do more now for the students, faculty, and staff who are here, and to help us to build our national profile. A better Bucknell recognizes the efforts that staff put into the keeping the university running, and adjusts compensation to reflect that labor. It return to a focus on social justice and preparing students to be good citizens.

The Problem

The operations Management Group, including Vice President Dan Hungerford, General Counsel Karin Rilley, Provost Wendy Sternberg, Vice President Nicole Whitehead, working at the behest of President John Bravman and the Board of Trustees, have instituted a series of austerity measures across the university. These measures represent a the culmination of years of mismanagement that now threaten the wellbeing of its students, faculty and staff, and the longterm integrity of our educational mission. Here are some of the major events so far:

Spring 2025: Provost Sternberg overturns the recommendation of faculty shared governance to withhold the return of four returning tenure-track lines to programs and departments.
Spring 2025: The University is sued for the wrongful death of a student athlete in Summer 2024.
Summer 2025: Vice President Whitehead fires scores of staff employees.
Summer 2025: Vice President Hungerford pulls designated endowment funds allocated to programs and departments by donors for advancing the academic mission of the university through research and teaching to fill a small but persistent budget gap created through previous mismanagement by the administration. Some donors have threatened to sue the university, and distrust between donors and the administration threatens to kneecap the University’s capital campaign.
Summer 2025: The Equal Protection Project sues the University for non-compliance with Trump administration mandates about diversity, equity and inclusion, no doubt caused by the dissolution of the division of Equity and Belonging which had been tasked with evaluating compliance.
Fall 2025: The Provost unilaterally announces the closure of the healthy and vibrant Bucknell University Press, a boon to the University’s national and international reputation, at the end of 2025-26.
Fall 2025: The Provost’s academic strategic planning suggested undermining of the teacher-scholar model, tenure protections and faculty control over the curriculum by planning to hire non-tenure track teaching faculty to make curricular innovations outside of departments and programs.

These actions pull from a playbook used by administrators across the country over the last decades. This playbook—undermining tenure, concentrating power in the hands of administrators, and prioritizing the endowment before education all the while increasing tuition above the rate of inflation while holding worker wages at or below inflation—has gutted the educational mission of universities fostering public distrust of higher education.

Now our administration seems poised to do the same here at Bucknell.

The Solution

AAUP Bucknell, backed by AAUP National, and Local 6741 of the American Federation of Teachers, is defending the people who are the university—faculty, staff, and students. Here’s how:

Cost of Living Adjustment to Improve Livelihoods

In May 2025, a majority of faculty and staff petitioned the administration for fair pay. It was the first time that Bucknell coworkers spoke with a majority voice. The administration continues to underinvest in the people who make the university run, even as the upper administration is handsomely rewards itself. They have the money. Why don’t they share?

In 2025-26 AAUP Bucknell is again advocating for real raises for all employees. This approach builds solidarity against wage-band divisions imposed and maintained by the boss. It also materially benefits the least compensated the most.

Join with your colleagues and stand up for each other!

Sign the petition and call to action!

A Living Wage in Union County, PA

A living wage is a wage that considers need. Every employer should include need in their calculation of wages and benefits, because it is the right thing to do. Despite this, there are workers at Bucknell who earn below a living wage. And if you earn above a living wage, what are you willing to do so that everyone does?

Information Sharing to build Solidarity

Administrators have publicly announced the elimination of some positions at Bucknell University. Other positions are being quietly eliminated and many staff and faculty may not be aware of the extent of downsizing that is currently taking place on our campus. AAUP Bucknell is collecting data about the positions that have been eliminated in 2025 in the interest of greater transparency and solidarity.

Data coming soon!

Please fill out this form if you know of additional staff or faculty positions that have been eliminated in 2025 (i.e. a person was fired and their position has been eliminated, or a person retired or resigned and their position has been eliminated). Please also fill out this form if you know of a full-time benefits-eligible staff position that was transitioned to a part-time position in 2025.

The form is anonymous; your email address and name will not be collected.

Please note that this data is open source and may contain errors as it is updated to reflect the current reality. If you spot an error, please fill out the form to help us correct it. After Vice Presidents Hungerford and Whitehead promised AAUP Bucknell accurate data, five months later they went back on their promise. In the absence of a publicly available accounting of cuts provided by the administration, we must source our own data however imperfectly.

Making a Majority for Workplace Democracy

Fortunately, the administration’s austerity comes from a tired playbook. We already know the solution. To fight back and win, we will need to make a majority that can speak loud enough that they cannot continue to ignore us. Shared governance is one vehicle but it really only represents faculty since only faculty have the job protections (tenure) to meaningfully speak up. AAUP Bucknell is the only organization on campus advocating for all the people who make the university work—faculty, staff, and students. Growing our democratic organization is the only way to win. Join us!

Academic Freedom for the Common Good

Academic freedom is the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher education to investigate and discuss the issues in his or her academic field, and to teach and publish findings without interference from administrators, boards of trustees, political figures, donors, or other entities. Academic freedom also protects the right of a faculty member to speak freely when participating in institutional governance, as well as to speak freely as a citizen.

Federal policy is targeting free speech and academic freedom which is the bedrock of higher education and a free society. University administrations are starting to self-censor. AAUP defends academic freedom by advocating for the institutional, legal, and material conditions that make it possible. Tell us how executive orders are affecting you. Join the Academic Freedom Learning Community to educate yourself and others about how the corporate neoliberal university has undermined academic freedom and the foundations of a free society, and how we can wield academic freedom for the common good.

What can you do?

Sign up for AAUP Bucknell (no dues) to join our listserv.
Add any of the AAUP badges above to your email signature to demonstrate your solidarity with your co-workers. (right-click the image below to download).
Share information about dismissals, non-renewals and cuts by filling out the form.
Talk to your co-workers about your wages and compensation, about AAUP Bucknell, and our campaign against austerity.