Invitation to the National Center’s Higher Education Conference on April 11-13

On April 11-13, 2022, the National Center will be holding our 49th annual labor-management conference in a virtual format. There is no conference registration fee but contributions are welcome.

The theme of the 2022 conference is The State of Collective Bargaining and Higher Education.

Links for online access to the conference will be sent out closer to the event date.

Below is a list confirmed conference panels and panelists:

Keynote Presentation with Montserrat Garibay, Senior Advisor for Labor Relations, Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Education in conversation with Kathleen Mulligan, Director of the National Labor Leadership Initiative, Cornell University, ILR School.

Panel: The Future of Higher Education with Arthur Levine, The Great Upheaval: Higher Education's Past, Present, and Uncertain Future, Ann Kirschner, University Professor, City University of New York, Adrianna Kezar, Endowed Professor and Dean's Professor of Leadership, USC, Director, Pullias Center, and Director, Delphi Project, Discussant, and Daniel Greenstein, Chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, Moderator.

Panel: Reassessing and Reexamining the History of Higher Education with Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt, Cristina Viviana Groeger, The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston, Davarian Baldwin, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, and Ellen Schrecker, The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s, and Suzanne Kahn, Managing Director of Research and Policy, Roosevelt Institute, Moderator.

 

Panel: Contract Negotiations under COVID and Beyond with Margaret E. Winters, former Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Wayne State University, Ricardo Villarosa, Wayne State University AAUP-AFT, Dominick Fanelli, Associate Director Labor Relations, University of Michigan, Kirsten Herold, President, Lecturers' Employee Organization, AFT Local 6244, and Homer C. La Rue, Labor Arbitrator, Mediator, and Professor of Law, Howard University School of Law, Moderator.

 

Panel: COVID and Higher Education: The Role of Unions and Arbitration Regarding Vaccine Mandates with Richard Bales, Professor of Law, Pettit College of Law, Ohio Northern University, Eve Weinbaum, Co-President, Massachusetts Society of Professors, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Michael Eagen, Associate Provost for Academic Personnel, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and and Sara Slinn, Associate Dean (Research and Institutional Relations) & Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Moderator.

 

Panel: Pandemic Organizing and Bargaining Lessons in Higher Education with Larry Savage, Chair, Department of Labour Studies, Brock University and Lauren Byers, United Faculty of Florida, Unit Service Director, Organizing Specialist, Barry Miller, Senior Policy Advisor on Labour Relations, York University, Moderator (panel in formation).

 

Panel: Lessons Learned: Organizing and Collective Bargaining by Graduate Assistants During the Pandemic with Jacob A. Bennett, MFA, PhD, University of New Hampshire, Ben Serber, Higher Ed Organizer, North Dakota United and Past President, FSU Graduate Assistants United, Amy L. Levant, Assistant Director of Labor and Employee Relations, University of Illinois, Chicago, and Joseph van der Naald, Graduate Student Researcher, Program in Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY, Moderator.

 

Panel: Limiting the Use of Student Evaluations in Contracts: Challenges in Vision and Enforcement with Steven Newman, Temple Association of University Professionals President, Temple University, Ian Sakinofsky, Professor of HR Management, Ryerson University, Laura Murphy, Dutchess United Educators, Alexandra Matish, Associate Vice Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs, University of Michigan, and Timothy S. Taylor, Arbitrator, Scheinman Arbitration and Mediation Services, Moderator.

 

Panel: Federal Funding, Inequality, and Higher Education: Politics and Policy-Making with Adam Harris, staff writer at the Atlantic, National Fellow at New America, and author, The State Must Provide: Why America’s Colleges Have Always Been Unequal — and How to Set Them Right, Rebecca S. Natow, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy, Hofstra University and author of the forthcoming Reexamining the Federal Role in Higher Education: Politics and Policymaking in the Postsecondary Sector, and Sosanya Jones, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Howard University, Moderator.

Panel: Becoming JEDI: Labor-Management Strategy to Challenge Racism on Campus and Stem Community College Enrollment Decline with Courtney Brewer, Professor of Psychology, Executive Vice President, Faculty Association Suffolk Community College, Christina Vargas, Chief Diversity Officer and Title IX Coordinator, Suffolk County Community College, board member, ERASE Racism NY, Patty Munsch, Interim Vice President for Student Affairs, Suffolk County Community College, Jennifer Browne, Associate Dean for Curriculum Development, Suffolk County Community College, Lauren Liburd, Specialist, SCCC Foundation, Co-Chair Achieving the Dream Committee, and Cynthia Eaton, Professor of English, Secretary, Faculty Association Suffolk Community College, Moderator.

 

Panel: Collective Bargaining and Shared Governance: Findings from the 2021 AAUP Shared Governance Survey with Lynn Pasquerella, President, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Timothy Reese Cain, Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of Georgia, Hans-Joerg Tiede, Director of Research, American Association of University Professors, and Michael Loconto, Arbitrator and Mediator, Loconto ADR, Boston, MA, Moderator.

 

Panel: Achieving Pay Parity for Part-Time Faculty in Community Colleges with

Sandra Weese, Organizing Director, California Federation of Teachers, Ron McKinley, Vice Chancellor of Human Resources and Employee Relations, Peralta Community College District, Dyana Delfin-Polk, Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, and Jennifer Shanoski, President, Peralta Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1603, Moderator. 

 

Panel: An Update from NLRB and Public Sector Labor Relations Agencies on Higher Education Issues with Mark Gaston Pearce, Executive Director, Workers’ Rights Institute, Georgetown University Law School, and former National Labor Relations Board Chairman, J. Felix De La Torre, General Counsel, California Public Employment Relations Board, Ellen Maureen Strizak, General Counsel, Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, and Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel, National Labor Relations Board.

 

Panel: Faculty Unionization and Collective Bargaining in the Philippines: Similarities and Differences with Benjamin Velasco, Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines, School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Rene Luis Tadle, Associate Professor, Philosophy, University of Santo Tomas and Lead Convenor, Council of Teachers and Staff of Colleges and Universities of the Philippines, Gerardo L. Blanco Associate Professor, Higher Education, Academic Director, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Shannon Lederer, Director of Immigration Policy, AFL-CIO, and Ashwini Sukthankar, Secretary/Treasurer, International Commission for Labor Rights. 

 

Panel: Higher Education Legal Update with Henry Morris, Jr., Partner, Arent Fox LLP, Monica Barrett, Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC, Angela Thompson, CWA Special Counsel for Strategic Initiatives, and Aaron Nisenson, Senior Legal Counsel, AAUP, Panelist and Moderator.

The National Center publishes a free monthly electronic newsletter that includes updates on collective bargaining in higher education and the professions. Each newsletter includes news based on public filings and decisions by labor relations agencies and courts. Click here to read our February 2022 newsletter.

If you are not already a subscriber, you can subscribe to the newsletter here.

On March 2, 2022, the National Center held a webinar titled Race, History, and Academic Freedom, A Teach-in. The goal was to educate those working and studying on campuses throughout the country about the current attacks on the teaching and learning about race in American history. 

Below are links to the webinar recording and the webinar reading materials.

Please consider using these materials for similar events on your campus.

Chancellor, Rutgers University, Newark

Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law

Professor of Labor & Employment Law, Cornell University ILR, and AAUP General Counsel

Professor of History, University of Florida, and President of United Faculty, Florida Chapter

Professor of Sociology Hunter College

Lázaro Lima, Moderator

Professor in the Department of Africana and Puerto Rican/Latino Studies, Hunter College

On December 15, 2021, the National Center and the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College hosted a webinar celebrating the release of historian Ellen Schrecker's latest book on higher education, The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s, published by the University of Chicago Press.

The recorded event included a panel discussion with Ellen Schrecker, retired Professor of History at Yeshiva University, Robert Cohen, Professor of History and Social Studies, Steinhardt School of Education, NYU, and Paul Lauter, Allen K. & Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature, Emeritus, Trinity College, Hartford. The panel was introduced and moderated by Bill Herbert, the National Center's Executive Director.