In a unanimous vote, the Governing Council of the American Association of University Professors has agreed to a tentative affiliation agreement with the American Federation of Teachers. If approved during the summer AAUP Convention, the forty thousand members of American Association of University Professors will come under the umbrella of American Federation of Teachers and join its 1.3 million members. So, what does this mean for members of the NMU-AAUP? The financial implications are addressed in the following paragraphs.

According to the tentative agreement announced on March 7, the AAUP will remain undisturbed and will maintain all of its present functions. The statement also said that affiliation with AFT will not result in an increase in national AAUP dues. For current AAUP chapters, national AFT per capita dues will be covered as part of the normal AAUP dues. However, there will be an increase in dues for being affiliated with the state chapter of the AFT. As we presently understand the agreement, the state contribution to the AFT starts at 5% of the per capita rate with a cap of 25% of the normal rate. This amounts to just over seven dollars per member per year at the start, with rates increasing to a cap around thirty-six dollars per member per year.

Because the AFT is also affiliated with the AFL-CIO, AAUP members will have to pay the per capita rate of about eight dollars per year per member to the Michigan AFL-CIO. The NMU-AAUP recently agreed to pay the local Central Labor Council fee to the Upper Peninsula Regional Labor Federation which is just over four dollars per member.

All totaled, we estimate the increase in dues for each faculty member to be about fifteen dollars in the first year of the agreement, and will cap out at around forty-four dollars per year. Given we represent contingent faculty, we will seek options for a modified payment system that will be equitable for them.

What we get in return for the extra dues payments is political and legislative representation in Lansing that we currently do not receive from the AAUP. We will also have full voting rights in the AFT of Michigan and with the AFL-CIO and UPRLF. We will have access to an additional legal defense fund for arbitration hearings and unfair labor practice suits. At only 25% dues, we will likely not have an AFT Michigan staff person assigned to us. We would have the option of increasing our state dues to receive more services from the AFT.

The AAUP will continue to employ its own staff and have complete autonomy over the management of its own budget and programs. The AAUP brand will still be used in higher education.

Additional details will be provided as we learn more about this tentative agreement.

The full release sent out from AAUP national on March 7, is available below.

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We are incredibly proud of the work that AAUP and AFT have done together to organize faculty and graduate employees around the US and to strengthen higher education and the profession. As a result of our partnership, more than twenty thousand faculty and other academic workers are in unions that are jointly represented by the AAUP and the AFT. In addition, we have worked together on important legislative efforts at the federal and state level to expand access to higher education, ensure adequate funding for public institutions, increase Pell grants, and expand academic workers’ right to unionize. AAUP members are already being included in planned student loan debt clinics run by AFT higher ed staff, and AFT members have had the opportunity to attend our Summer Institutes. Since last fall, we’ve been discussing how to best build on our successful organizing work, support our shared commitment to education and the common good, and build a stronger and more inclusive higher education movement.

Our update today is to share with you that a tentative agreement on an affiliation with the AFT has been reached, and that the AAUP’s governing Council has unanimously recommended that a vote to ratify the affiliation be brought to the AAUP’s biennial meeting in June. The tentative agreement is the result of months of work by the AAUP and AFT’s teams, thorough consultation with the AAUP’s Council, and careful review by our legal experts and auditors. It also reflects the four core principles that the Council laid out at the beginning of this process:

●       Preserve the AAUP’s independence and autonomy

●       Increase the AAUP’s reach and influence among the profession

●       Maintain the AAUP’s brand in higher education

●       Be fair to the AAUP staff

Under the terms of this affiliation agreement, all AAUP members, by virtue of their membership in the AAUP, will also be members of the AFT/AFL-CIO. All AAUP collective bargaining chapters will become chartered locals of the AFT and all AAUP advocacy members will be part of a nationwide AAUP-AFT local. All CB and advocacy chapters will also continue to be chartered chapters of the AAUP. AAUP members and AAUP chapters will have access to AFT support and services, including specific AFT member benefits. AFT higher ed members will have access to certain services and programs that the AAUP provides as a service to the profession. Current “solo” AFT higher ed members will not become members of AAUP as a result of this affiliation. All new academic organizing—in both CB and non-CB settings—will be joint AAUP-AFT efforts and all new members will enjoy the rights and benefits of, and have access to the services and support of, both national organizations.

This affiliation will not result in an increase in national AAUP dues and, for current AAUP members, AFT per capita will be covered as part of the AAUP dues. Where applicable, AAUP solo CB chapters will become members of the AFT state federation at a reduced per capita rate. AAUP solo CB chapters will also become members of their state AFL and central labor councils (CLCs). While solo AAUP CB chapters will be required to pay per capita to the AFT state federations, the state AFL and the local CLC, we believe these costs will be financially manageable for most solo AAUP CB chapters. (For more information, click here and log in with your AAUP member credentials.) In order to provide support and assistance to our solo CB chapters as they make this transition, the AAUP has set up a CB chapter assistance fund. The national AAUP and its chapters will remain autonomous organizations with full control over their own finances, policies, programs, and staff. The national AAUP will continue to be governed by the AAUP Council; will continue to have its own committees; and will have complete autonomy over the Redbook, our policies and statements on behalf of the profession, investigations, censure, and sanction. The AAUP will continue to employ its own staff and will retain sole authority over management of its budget and programs. While the affiliation with AFT is not cost-free to the AAUP, we do believe that the financial impact on our organization is manageable.

An overview of the agreement, a frequently asked questions document, and the agreement itself can be found here (member login required). The relationship between the national AAUP and its chapters will not be changed. The AAUP will continue to operate as an autonomous entity and will continue to provide the same services and support to our chapters, our members, and the profession.

This affiliation recognizes and builds upon our successful joint organizing agreement and will allow the AAUP to maintain our organizational independence and our reputation in the profession while expanding our influence and reach in higher education. It preserves and memorializes our two organizations’ strong commitment to working together and recognizes that important and distinct role that the AAUP plays in the academy. Crucially, this affiliation recognizes that there is much more we can do together to confront the challenges facing higher education and our nation. It establishes a structure on which we can build a stronger, more inclusive higher education movement. It provides a pathway for our chapters to work more closely in solidarity with their AFT colleagues around the country and in their states and communities. It also allows us to enhance our successful joint organizing work and to expand into sectors of the academy where we have not yet had the opportunity to organize together. We know that the AAUP’s knowledge and expertise paired with the AFT’s reach and resources have been a winning combination at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, the University of New Mexico, the University of Alaska, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the University of Vermont, to name a few. We believe that there is much more that we can do together to organize the unorganized in union and non-union settings.

The three of us, along with the Council of the AAUP, believe that this is a truly historic moment for the profession. It is a truly historic moment for free inquiry in a free society, a truly historic moment for the common good, and a truly historic moment for democracy. We don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say that democracy is hanging on by a thread right now, and a strong higher education movement is part of what’s needed to salvage and strengthen our democracy. In the few months since we started exploring possibilities for affiliation, the attacks on higher education and the common good have increased. Educational gag order legislation aimed at curtailing academic freedom has been introduced in thirty-eight states. We see administrations acquiescing to pressure from governing boards and state legislatures on fundamental issues such as academic freedom, faculty shared governance, and due process. We see state systems launching full assaults on tenure.

At the same time, we see a renewed interest in organizing to confront these challenges among faculty and other academic workers. On campuses where unionization is possible, we see faculty forming organizing committees and starting union campaigns. We also see a renewed interest in building and strengthening advocacy chapters as a vehicle for campus change. The ongoing challenges facing higher education and this renewed interest in organizing underscore the need for solidarity—with our colleagues and within our own organization, to be sure, but also with other organizations and with the academic labor movement as a whole. This affiliation will help all of us—AAUP and AFT Higher Education members together—achieve this.

The full text of the agreement, along with a summary, can be found here (member log in required) If you are unable to access this material, please email executivedirector@aaup.org, and we will provide the information in an alternate form. We will be sending a formal notice about the affiliation vote to take place at the June 2022 biennial meeting later this week. Please note that we will also hold a question-and-answer session on Thursday afternoon, June 17, at the AAUP Conference and Biennial Meeting. Over the next few weeks, we will be reaching out to chapters and leaders to discuss this proposed affiliation further and to answer any questions they may have. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to the three of us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Irene Mulvey, President

Paul Davis, Vice President

Chris Sinclair, Secretary-Treasurer

We have all witnessed the heart-breaking images documenting the slaughter of innocent civilians in Putin’s war against freedom in Ukraine. As we hear the bombs explode and see the sadness in the faces of the afflicted, we wish we could do something to stop it. In our despair, we reach for our credit cards in hopes that our donations to relief agencies will help mitigate the suffering of these innocent people. Short of boarding a plane and taking up arms against the invaders, providing financial support is about all most of us can do.

As a group of faculty members in a remote portion of America, we are far removed from the unfathomable physical and emotional trauma we view on our screens. However, we can learn a lot from the Ukrainians as we witness the first salvos of an ideological war that has been launched here at home against academic freedom.

Last October, the University System of Georgia Board of Regents voted to make it possible to fire tenured faculty members without affording them a dismissal hearing. On March 5, the Governing Council of the AAUP voted to censure the USG for removing protections for academic freedom for nearly 6,000 tenured faculty members across the state and called upon the USG regents to rescind changes to their post-tenure review policy.

In February, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick pledged to dismantle academic tenure during a press conference on February 18. “What we will propose to do is end tenure, all tenure for all new hires,” For currently tenured professors, he said, “the law will change to say teaching critical race theory is prima facie evidence of good cause for tenure revocation.”

Most of this war about teaching Critical Race Theory is currently being fought in the predictable states like Florida, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma. However, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a similar ban on November 3, 2021. Fortunately, it was not signed into law. This battle is not just about CRT, it is about the encroachment of the government on free speech of all kinds including academic freedom.

While this fight may seem trivial compared to what our friends in Ukraine are facing right now, the fate of our First Amendment rights and academic freedom in Michigan may very well rest on what happens in the 2022 elections. Considering this, I hope we can draw inspiration from our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. Their level of sacrifice should challenge us to get involved with campaigns supporting our values as faculty members and union members. Having witnessed the Ukrainians’ abundant courage, we can certainly do something as benign as knocking on doors and giving our money to help elect people who will push back against those who desire to remove First Amendment and academic freedoms.

The governor’s race in particular will not only have implications for academic freedom, it directly impacts who sits on the NMU Board of Trustees. Having the candidate of our choosing in that office is of critical importance. This is our fight. And like the Ukrainians, we can’t count on anyone else to fight it for us.

Dwight Brady, President, NMU-AAUP

Members of the NMU-AAUP have voted 197-30 to support the most recent contract proposal. The ratification vote was held on November 8, with most of the participants voting by email. The proposal will now go to the NMU Board of Trustees. “Provided the Board of Trustees approves this agreement; we will return to pre-pandemic compensation levels. However, it is distressing that it took eight months of negotiations and mediation to achieve this,” said the union’s Chief Negotiator Lesley Putman. “We are thankful for the students, members of the community and other union members in Marquette County who expressed overwhelming support for the Northern Michigan University AAUP faculty in our struggle for a fair contract,” added Putman.

Negotiations began in March of 2021, and NMU faculty have been working without a contract since July 1, 2021.

As of midnight on July 1, the one-year collective bargaining agreement forged during a global pandemic expired. Working without a contract is quite rare in the history of the NMU-AAUP, so we have sought legal counsel on key issues to help provide some guidance during this uncertain time.

• Under Michigan law, the terms and conditions in our expired contract have to be maintained as part of a status quo. This means all wage and benefits continue on as previously articulated in our 2020-2021 contract as long as we are doing our job. This also means procedures regarding self-governance and promotion and tenure still continue on as they were.
• They could possibly take away our email and free internet access. In most cases, they should continue.
• We cannot engage in arbitration during a contract gap, but we can still engage in mediation. In arbitration, both parties give the power to decide the dispute to the arbitrator. In mediation, the mediator has no power to impose a resolution, other than the power of persuasion.
• Any salary or benefits we negotiate in the interim between July 1 and the ratification date would not be retroactive. For example, if we negotiated 2% pay raise for ratified and the board approved on September 1, we would not receive the portion of our pay raise for the period between July 1 and Sept. 1.
• If health insurance costs increase during the interim period, we would be responsible for paying this out of pocket.
• They still have to pay us the wages under the 2020-21 contract as long as we are showing up for work.
• They can only claim an impasse if our teams are not moving toward an agreement.
• If an impasse occurs, the duty to negotiate is suspended, and an employer is permitted to unilaterally implement the terms of its final proposal. They can implement any changes to working conditions that it had proposed to the union during negotiations without the union’s approval.
• The Board can order HR to stop collecting dues payments for the union.
• It means the administration cannot just start firing people. Employees are not subject to termination or interference because there is no CBA in place. They should report to work as directed.

I hope this helps you understand what we are facing during this period. We will continue to work toward a new CBA, and we ask for your patience and participation in this process.

When Dr. Lupe Arenillas accepted a position at NMU in 2010 she found that Marquette wasn’t quite what she was expecting. Arenillas grew up in a big family and lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina until she was eight years old. As a university student she received her Bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in a city with a population over three million. Prior to her arrival at NMU Arenillas also spent a year in California. Marquette stood in stark contrast to her time in big cities.

“For me it was like a big leap of faith because I was expecting to live in a big city, in a bigger place or in a more diverse place,” Arenillas said. “I didn’t want to be in the Midwest,” she laughed.

Despite her reservations Arenillas accepted a position in the Department of Languages, Literatures and International Studies, because it was the first position offered to her. She understood the value of a tenure-track position and didn’t want to let that opportunity slip away. Once she arrived, she was pleasantly surprised, and she is now a tenured associate professor. 

“I really liked my colleagues immediately,” Arenillas said. “I really liked them, and it felt like a warm place in the sense of the people, and that for me is super important.”

As a professor at NMU Arenillas has taught a variety of upper and lower level courses including some classes in the Honors program.

“I teach many different classes,” Arenillas said. “Mostly the advanced Spanish courses in Latin American film, culture and literature but I also occasionally teach the elementary and intermediate levels for the Spanish language.”

In addition to teaching at NMU, Arenillas’s research has been published in multiple journals. Her research focuses on Latin American documentary film and literature. In 2016 she co-edited a book titled Latin American Documentary Film in the New Millenium. She studies documentary film from Argentina and Chile in order to explore questions related to memory, materiality, temporality and justice. She also studies how film can be used to tell stories in ways that are unlike other media.

“I like to see traces, you know,” Arenillas said. “Traces of the past in the present, the traces of memory from one generation to another. I wrote about, for example, a documentary that focused on buildings and how buildings change with time, and then I traced the history but also how the documentary can tell the story in a different way than a novel, for example.”

Arenillas loves to travel and says studying documentary film can sometimes be like travelling through time. Of course, she can’t really take a trip to the past but she has done plenty of exploring in the present. She shared some examples of places she has visited.

“I travelled quite a lot in Europe,” Arenillas said. “I spent some time in Portugal doing research on Mozambiquan poets, and I’ve been in Switzerland and many, many places in Latin America. I like to go to Puerto Rico.”

Arenillas doesn’t only travel for her own benefit. She is involved in the NMU in Salamanca program started by Dr. Michael Joy. The program sends a group of students to spend a month in Salamanca each May, although this year’s trip was cancelled due to the pandemic.

“The program is wonderful because it has an academic, a cultural and a social focus,” Arenillas said. 

Students take classes from professors at the University of Salamanca, as well as from the NMU professors who join them on the trip. Arenillas has participated in the program three times, and says Salamanca is a lively town that provides plenty of opportunities for students to explore. She enjoys spending time in Salamanca just as much as the students do.

“I feel like I have a little life there because I went three times, so I spent three months there,” Arenillas said.

As much as she loves travelling, Arenillas finds joy in returning home as well.

“I like the feeling of returning because that gives me a sense of also, ‘I have a home,’” Arenillas said. “I like to move with a base.”

Although she was nervous about coming to the Upper Peninsula for the first time, Marquette has since become that base for her. She loves her friends and colleagues and she says she has received much support for her research which makes her very happy. She is glad she accepted the position at NMU and plans to settle down here for a while.

“The U.P. grew on me,” she said. “It really grew.”

It was a strong show of solidarity carrying the message that continued wage freezes are intolerable.  At 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, Northern Michigan University faculty gathered to bring attention to the present state of negotiations. The contingent of well over one hundred NMU faculty and members from other unions chanted “Frozen Pay is Not O.K.” as they marched from Jamrich Hall to the Cohodas Building. The rally continued with several trips around Cohodas and Speeches featuring Chief Negotiator Lesley Putman, Contract Officer Gabe Logan, and Upper Peninsula Regional Labor Federation Representative Cajsa Maki.

In recent bargaining negotiations, the faculty team has proposed creative and reasonable solutions to the compensation problem, yet the administration’s negotiating team has made only one offer in over a month calling for a pay freeze during the next two years. In a truly unfortunate move, the administrative team said they would not continue talking about the financial aspects of the contract until after the spring Board of Trustees meeting. This is was perceived by the AAUP Executive Committee as a strategic move to stall negotiations until summer when students and many faculty members are away from campus.

Members of the Board of Trustees and the administration have consistently sung our praises this past year. Unfortunately, words only go so far. Bold changes are needed to address the uncompetitive compensation shown in the following graphic.

Compared to the eleven Michigan public universities that report salary data to the AAUP-NMU faculty are next to last in terms of total compensation and nearly 10% below the median.  While the Board of Trustees may congratulate the administration for keeping expenditures low, this rate of pay will erode the quality of instruction at this institution.

The administrative negotiating team needs to return to the table with a bold compensation proposal aimed at fixing this trend.  There are numerous financial indicators suggesting now is the time!  The expected executive order reducing state appropriations for last year ended up not being as severe as anticipated. Recent university investment returns have been higher than expected.  There have been higher than anticipated energy savings from facility closures. Supplies, materials, and services expenditures due to facility closures and remote operations have resulted in savings.  There are approximately $5 million in unspent discretionary CARES Act funds, $8.6 million in anticipated discretionary American Rescue Plan Act funds, over $4 million in healthcare savings the past 2 years, and over $3 million in early retirement buyout savings in 2 years.  Early admissions and enrollment data also point to a rebound in fall 2021.

The NMU-AAUP feels future uncertainty is not an acceptable reason for failing to address the compensation inequity problems. Failure to do so puts NMU at a competitive disadvantage when trying to attract and retain the best talent for our students.

By Rayna Sherbinow and Dwight Brady

The pristine yet rugged shoreline of Lake Superior may seem invincible, but climate change and over-development could radically alter its present state. Preparing for these forces of nature and human activity is the main thrust of a project headed up by three NMU professors. 

Thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation, Jes Thompson (College of Business), Scott Jordan (Outdoor Recreation)  and Sarah Mittlefehldt (EEGS) have launched a program to help members of the coastal community offer input and plan for equity and adaptability while maintaining a sustainable and resilient shoreline along Lake Superior.

Part of this project involved three workshops about past sustainability issues, current concerns and ideas for the future. Seventy stakeholders from the community participated in the workshops and represented various interests and concerns about lakeshore sustainability. “We had a lot of diverse perspectives,” Thompson said. “We had people who were really conservative and we had people who were really liberal, and it really didn’t matter because we all know that we have to work together to live alongside this common resource.”

Ultimately, Thompson hopes these forums will lead coastal communities in the U.P. to define their own identity and develop planning codes that will ensure sustainability and resiliency in the face of climate change and migration to the north.

The workshops took an interdisciplinary approach to lakeshore sustainability. Specifically, they explored the connection among the ecosystem’s health and the community’s well being in terms of commerce and development. At the end of the workshop series, the team put together a digital magazine that documented the results of the session and highlighted the interdisciplinary research from each professor. Thompson focused on business development. Mittlefehldt focused on environmental sustainability, and Jordan’s primary concern was tourism.

Mittlefehldt contributed historical research to the project. She looked at local responses to sustainability issues over the years. “I spent some time in some of the regional archives looking at different planning efforts in the past to see how people have been planning for coastal development before people started talking about climate change,” Mittlefehldt said.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Upper Peninsula saw a movement toward industrialization. People made use of resources in and around Lake Superior and its shoreline as they traveled, transported goods and built towns and cities. The local industrialization efforts were a form of coastal development, and undoubtedly required communication and planning from everyone involved. 

“Although many of our goals and concerns may have changed over the years, communication, planning and building a healthy local economy are still important parts of the sustainability conversation,” said Dr. Mittlefehldt. 

After establishing what can be learned from the past, CoPe (Coastlines and People) shifted its focus to the present. Jordan was interested in the current relationship among the lakeshore, tourism and outdoor recreation. “The lakeshore is creating outdoor recreation,” Jordan said. “Climate change is kind of part of that.”

Jordan explained that as the northern climate warms, people are less inclined to move south for outdoor activities. Instead, there is increasing use of Lake Superior’s shoreline for recreation. “That creates some sense of place issues,” Jordan said. “It creates some economic issues, good and bad.” 

An example of tourism’s impact can be seen from the 1.2 million people who visited Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore during a global pandemic in 2020. This shattered the previous record of 858,000 set in 2019. Workshop participants from Munising and Grand Marais felt tourism could overwhelm their current infrastructure.

When talking about the present, the CoPe team learned which sustainability issues concerned stakeholders most. “We would get that information and then find experts associated with those topics and try to address those questions,” Dr. Jordan said.

Many stakeholders expressed concern over increased erosion and flooding, but they also wanted the shoreline to remain accessible to the public. After this discussion, the workshops considered how to protect the environment while also allowing future generations to enjoy it. 

Several local organizations contributed to the project, including the architecture firm Studio RAD. “They were critical because they brought a skillset that we don’t have, which is designing and creating pictures to help people visualize different futures for the shore,” Thompson said.

The workshops discussed multiple potential solutions, each accompanied by an illustration from Studio RAD. Participants discussed the pros and cons of every option. Some of their quotes were printed in the magazine alongside Studio RAD’s images and written descriptions of each idea.

In addition to teaching and interacting with community members, the professors found the workshops to be educational experiences for themselves. “The effects of climate change on Lake Superior and the south shore were much greater than I had known,” Jordan said.

According to the Environmental Law and Policy Center, daily temperatures in the Great Leakes Region increased 1.4 degrees between 1985 and 2016. The report also projects an increase of 5.7 – 9.8 degrees by the end of the 21st Century.

Mittlefehldt enjoyed working with a variety of people to address widespread sustainability issues. She says people often become isolated within their fields of expertise, so the workshops provided a valuable opportunity to break those barriers.

“Probably the best thing that came out of this was the collaboration between all the different entities, different levels of government, private sector, public sector,” Mittlefehldt said. “It was just a really great mix of people that kind of was what made the project successful.”

Thompson agrees. In retrospect, she sees more value in the experience. Due to the pandemic, she fears this opportunity may not arise again for quite some time.

“Having a workshop with 70 people with different perspectives, representing different stakeholders, that was such a gift,” Thompson said. “That was such a treat, and I now know we can’t do that on Zoom.”

Thompson says strong communities are those that can come together despite their differences to work towards a common goal. The importance of working together can be seen throughout the CoPe project. Jordan emphasizes this point as well.

“Involving local people in local decision making is important, and that takes this community ownership,” Jordan said. “So it’s not fair when just a few people from a community make decisions about their shoreline.”

The professors all hope that these workshops helped encourage discussions about sustainability. Mittlefehldt would like to establish a sustainability hub at NMU which would facilitate similar interdisciplinary work among faculty, staff, and community members. 

“I always enjoy working with people outside of my own disciplinary expertise, because I think that’s where we find real solutions to environmental challenges that we’re facing,” Mittlefehldt said.

Thompson wants to see the conversation about sustainability continue to grow and expand beyond the academic world. Ideally, she would like to see planning codes line up with the identity of these coastal communities.

She says the key to avoiding this is to be pracademic. The word is a portmanteau of ‘practitioner’  and ‘academic.’ It implies academic expertise and active participation in a field. In the case of sustainability, a pracademic would not only discuss problems and potential solutions, but also implement those solutions. 

“I think sometimes people assume research can’t be local, can’t be real,” Thompson said. Thompson hopes that CoPe will help prove those doubters wrong.

To view more images and read more information about the workshops and those involved, click here. A digital publication of the project’s findings can be found here. To learn more about the National Science Foundation, visit their website.