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Our AAUP chapter convened in person and on Zoom on February 9, 2024 for our first meeting of the calendar year. Despite finding ourselves in the throes of the semester, turnout was robust, with several  members also tuning in virtually. We welcomed new members with a round of introductions.  Executive committee lead Ken Field then took on the first item of business: reviewing the recent NLRB ruling resulting from the VAP organizing effort last year. Ken encouraged new members to continue to reach out to colleagues and coworkers, while emphasizing positive and inspiring themes. He went on to explain that, […]

On Thursday February 1st, The MLK Week Committee and Bucknell’s Office of Religious and Spiritual Life co-sponsored a discussion session titled, “Why Is the Conversation So Hard? Islamophobia, Antisemitism and Israel-Palestine Dialogue”. On Tuesday February 13th, the Division of Equity & Inclusive Excellence hosted two speakers from Parents Circle. Ofer Lior, an Israeli who had lost his brother and Arab Aramin, a Palestinian who had lost his sister. It is somewhat heartening that campus events have focused on open dialogue and shared humanity, which cannot be taken for granted in a national culture that seeks to undermine the unencumbered pursuit […]

On January 17, 2024, Bucknell released a Notice (available in the top banner in myBucknell) as part of a Settlement Agreement with the National Labor Relations Board, the independent federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees. The Notice reminds us of our collective rights as employees. The executive committee believes it is important to understand the context that led to this settlement to better understand those rights. The correct case number at the NLRB is 06-CA-318937. The Bucknell AAUP successfully submitted a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained the redacted information that confirms some of the […]

AAUP members also heard from our Membership committee, whose primary charge remains to recruit broadly across the university. This fall, the committee reached out to potential members through personal networks such as individual invitations and group emails, and was generally encouraged by the result of these efforts. Noting that only relying on personal networks might produce blind spots—especially when it comes to getting non-faculty workers on board—the committee urged all AAUP members to be creative with their outreach.  To this end, the committee’s goals for the spring include broadening contact with different constituencies on campus, in particular staff, VAPs, and […]

AAUP Bucknell’s Communications Committee sees its charge as facilitating communication among all employees at Bucknell, because we know that communication creates community, and community engenders power. The committee’s fall 2023 goal was to make AAUP Bucknell a consistent presence in people’s inboxes and across campus.  Toward this end, we began the monthly newsletter (which you’re reading) linked to regular blog posts on the AAUP Bucknell website. The website and newsletter inform readers about best practices for building collective power (“Strategies for Solidarity”), the impact of AAUP Bucknell and AAUP national (“the AAUP Difference”), news related to our 2023-24 goals (“Workplace […]

In Fall 2023, the Workplace Democracy and Voice committee identified its charge as developing proactive plans for shared governance mechanisms already existing and to facilitate communication among staff who often feel siloed by current communication practices at the university. Toward this end, the committee reached out to the University Staff Personnel Committee to encourage USPC to be more forthcoming about their work and its outcomes, to which the co-chairs replied that they are exploring how to provide monthly updates. This advocacy to get USPC to work for staff will continue into Spring. The committee’s conversations also revealed the need to […]

AAUP Bucknell’s Worksharing and Pay Transparency Subcommittee reported back to the  chapter a busy and exciting semester. The subcommittee is continuing efforts from previous years that made strides in pay transparency and generally increasing the knowledge on campus of what salaries look like for faculty and staff across campus by Dr. Clare Sammells’ opt-in salary sharing survey. The subcommittee is expanding to ensure that AAUP and others have access to information about pay bands across all university employees. Maintenance of that database, particularly as compensation and job descriptions change, is critical for employees at Bucknell in a range of roles. […]

It’s no secret that college campuses have a range of labor relations, which can create a sense of competition and scarcity among divisions and even within departments. Bucknell relies on the labor of more than 1500 employees—ranging from non-tenure-track, tenure-track and tenured faculty, a wide range of staff positions, student employees, and subcontracted workers like those employed by Parkhurst Dining Services. With the exception of tenured faculty, all these workers are at-will employees who can be fired at a moment’s notice. In 2017, a group of tenured faculty members from across the US founded “Tenure for the Common Good” which […]

In many ways, AAUP Bucknell grows out of recent struggles over shared governance spearheaded by the Ad Hoc Shared Governance Review Committee (2023-23) whose work continues in the Ad Hoc Shared Governance Review Implementation Committee (2023-25). AAUP Bucknell seeks to support faculty shared governance while also promoting broader workplace democracy for all Bucknell employees. What would it mean to meaningfully include faculty, staff, and students in resource allocation through forms of participatory budgeting? How would the relationship between faculty, staff, students and administration change if administrators were evaluated by the employees they manage? How would the direction of the university […]

After many years of retrenchment driven by anti-union legislation (e.g. “Right-to-work” laws) and judicial decisions (Janus vs. AFSCME (2018)), recent years have seen an heartening uptick in union activity spearheaded by K-12 teachers and their unions: the 2018 Red State Revolt across many right-to-work states followed by the long but effective Chicago Public Schools strikes in 2019 and the short and effective Los Angeles United School District strikes in 2023. With SAG-AFTRA, WGA, and now UAW strikes, Summer 2023 was dubbed “Hot Union Summer.”  The latest issue of Academe, AAUP’s magazine which you receive when you become a dues-paying member, […]