This is the text of a speech delivered to the Collective Bargaining Congress of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, December 6, 1997.

James T. Richardson, J.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies
University of Nevada, Reno
jtr@scs.unr.edu

DEVELOPMENT OF MY PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY OF FACULTY GOVERNANCE

My personal philosophy of faculty governance can be easily stated. It is simply this:

Faculty should be meaningfully involved in any forum in which decisions are being made that affect higher education and faculty rights, and they should use any effective tactics to support higher education and defend faculty rights.

That philosophy has, of course, immense implications. It means that faculty or their representatives will be actively involved on their campuses and in their larger systems of higher education. But it also means that faculty will be represented in state legislatures, with governors and state budget directors, in Congress, and even with U.S. Presidents and their staffs, as well as in other important forums such as the mass media.

I have had some experience with all these levels, but before detailing them I want to briefly recount two major episodes that helped shape my broad and activist philosophy of faculty governance, experiences not unlike what some of you have had that led you to be actively involved in faculty governance. One of these events some of you will have heard about; the other, which occurred earlier and was more personal, was less well known outside of Nevada.

The earlier event involved my having to sue in federal court to defend my own rights as a faculty member. I arrived at the University of Nevada, Reno a young and very idealistic new assistant professor who believed that if you worked hard and "kept your nose clean", you would be rewarded and have a successful career. Quite early I was disabused of this idea.

Within the first two years of my arrival I saw two episodes of excellent people being fired, for no good reason. In one case I presented a petition to faculty senate signed by a number of faculty members protesting the firing of the director of the system computing center, a very academically oriented person who thought his first responsibility was to educate students. The administrator who did the firing was present at the senate meeting and was none too happy to have me publicly recount the gory details of this episode.

The second firing was that of an English professor who had just been granted tenure. He was fired for involvement in an anti-war demonstration that occurred on our campus at the time of the Cambodian invasion. I co-chaired his defense committee, raising money so that he could defend himself and working with him to secure an attorney and develop his case. This was a very high profile case in Nevada, and the efforts of some of us to defend him did not go unnoticed, as it turned out.

A year or so later I went up for promotion, one of 89 names on a list for promotion and tenure that was submitted to the Regents for the system. Eighty-eight recommendations were granted; mine was not. The message that came back was: "tell him to keep quiet for a year and we will promote him next time." That message incensed me and a number of my colleagues, who, led by some stalwart AAUP members, came to my defense. Money was raised and I was able to file suit in federal court, claiming violation of my first and fourteenth amendment rights.

A year later I won this suit by a settlement that included retroactive promotion with back pay. The episode was very trying, because for a while I thought my career might be finished. But this episode and the earlier two firings also taught faculty members in our system a lesson or two: Faculty members must band together and act collectively, and they must be able to defend themselves, even in court if necessary. This realization led directly to the development of more vigorous faculty organizations on some campuses in our state-wide system.

The second episode I mentioned involved imposition of a major set of code changes by the Board of Regents for Nevada higher education in the early 1980s. Some older listeners may recall this event, which attracted attention from the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as major papers such as the Washington Post and the LA Times.

This new code contained many onerous provisions, such as the one allowing a campus president to order a faculty member to undergo a psychiatric exam if the president thought the faculty member was acting a bit odd. (That provision led to my second favorite editorial headline of all time: The LA Times ran an editorial in 1983 about the code entitled "In Nevada it is already 1984.")

Faculty throughout the system were outraged over the imposition of this code, and the battle over this new code went on for over a year. The "Code War" even involved the firing of one administrator at UNLV, Dale Nietzke, who later received AAUP's prestigious Micklejohn award for his defense of academic values in the battle.

One specific event stands out in my mind about the Code War. A number of us involved in the protest sought help from national organizations such as the AAUP to fight this terrible new code. And the AAUP came to our rescue. I will never forget the sight of the AAUP's Jonathan Knight speaking at a regents' meeting about problems with the proposed code. He was treated with respect by them, in part because the national media campaign that AAUP had helped generate had softened them up a bit. Jonathan eloquently explained why some of the provisions of the new code violated AAUP policies concerning tenure, academic freedom, and due process, and asked for modifications.

The regents did remove some of the more onerous provisions of the new code, a direct result of the national campaign that we had mounted, with the help of AAUP. This episode taught me something about useful tactics, including how to organize a national campaign, and it certainly impressed on my mind the value of AAUP in such battles.

IMPLICATIONS OF ACTIVIST GOVERNANCE PHILOSOPHY

A. Campus and System Involvement in Governance

The personal philosophy that evolved out of these episodes has many implications, as already indicated. My own implementation of this active philosophy of governance has involved me in campus and system higher education affairs, but also in state and national politics. This philosophy has also led me to be much more involved in AAUP activities, particularly those involving government relations and lobbying. First, I will recount some of my activities within my campus and state-wide system of higher ed.

I was faculty-senate chair and served four years on the executive committee of the senate in the 1970s. I helped establish the first senate budget committee in Nevada higher education, and chaired it for several years, and I also served on most other senate committees at one time or another. And, I have been involved in many other campus committees such as those dealing with personnel, curriculum, and, of course, search committees (serving on the last presidential search committee at UNR, for instance).

I also served on a number of state-wide system committees, including serving for years on and chairing the system compensation committee, which had as a main task the development of the compensation request for the Nevada legislature. I also served on a major committee in the late 1980s that revamped our retirement program, adding many different options. And, I was serving on a system-wide code committee charged with re-writing the system code at the time the regents decided to impose their own code, leading to the Code War described above.

Of particular interest to those who collectively bargain, I have served twice on system committees to modify rules of collective bargaining. The last such committee was established after the NFA brought considerable pressure to bear on behalf of community college faculty, who wanted the right to establish their own bargaining unit. That committee accepted NFA positions on most of the items that came before it, and, as you know, we now do have a contract at one of our community colleges and others are considering joining the unit.

B. Ways to Increase Faculty Input Within Higher Ed Systems

Regrettably, as many of you know, sometimes the faculty voice is not heard within a campus or a system of higher education, making meaningful involvement in governance problematic or impossible. If this is the case, then extraordinary means must be found to make faculty input more effective. Such effectiveness comes only when faculty and their organizations are respected by administrations.

I will now discuss two related methods of gaining needed respect for faculty, both of which have been tried in Nevada and which I have helped develop. One is the establishment of a strong legal defense policy to protect faculty rights. The other is the development of collective bargaining in Nevada higher education. First, some comments on legal defense.

1. Legal Defense Development

The episodes I described earlier about firing a tenured faculty member and my own personnel difficulties caused faculty on my campus to seek a way to defend themselves legally, since it seemed to be the case in the early 1970s that fair treatment would not always be granted by our Board of Regents. This consideration led directly to the establishment of a National Society of Professors (an NEA affiliate) chapter on the UNR campus and at one or two community colleges.

We formed this organization to complement the already present AAUP chapter, mainly because the NEA had a large defense fund for use by teachers and faculty who were in job-threatening situations. This dual approach worked reasonably well for several years, although it meant, of course, that a number of us were paying dues to both national organizations.

But we were getting two important things for our money, both of which we had learned were very valuable. We were getting access to AAUP's experience and credibility in the area of academic freedom, faculty governance, and other areas, and we were getting access to NEA's defense fund to assist individual faculty who encountered personnel difficulties. Over the next decade or so we made considerable use of both.

Immediately after the Code War described above, we formed the Nevada Faculty Alliance in 1984, formalizing organizational ties with both the AAUP and the NEA, and its state affiliate, the Nevada State Education Association. The NFA was a state-wide organization of faculty from all public institutions of higher education, including both community colleges and universities. I was elected the first president of this state-wide jointly affiliated organization, and have served two two-year terms in that office. I have also been NFA's chief lobbyist since NFA's inception.

That formal joint organization, established in 1983, lasted only a few years, however, as we disaffiliated eventually from NEA over serious policy disagreements concerning political endorsements and the right of NFA to lobby the legislature. The state NEA affiliate kept trying to defeat some legislators who were strong supporters of higher education (including some who were NFA members!), and they did not want NFA to lobby the legislature. (These episodes of disagreement with the NEA affiliate has given me considerable experience dealing with NEA and its affiliates, something that will be useful if I am elected AAUP President.)

When we disaffiliated from NEA we decided to maintain the legal defense policy on our own, thus becoming, I believe, the only AAUP state conference with such a program. We kept our dues high to pay for this program (and for the lobbying effort, to be described below, along with other activities), making us a "high dues/high service" type of AAUP state conference. Thus, all our members now have a form of legal insurance, guaranteeing them a minimum amount of time with NFA attorneys if they have a personnel difficulty.

We, of course, work hard to mediate disputes before getting the attorneys involved, and this has often been successful. However, if a case warrants it, then, on the recommendation of our Legal Defense Committee Co-Chairs, the State NFA Board may fund the case in part or full. (This program of legal defense was described by Legal Defense Co-Chairs Elizabeth Francis and Glynda White and by NFA State President Berch Berberoglu at the AAUP annual meeting in Berkeley in 1998, and can also be found in detail on the NFA website, at http://www.unr.edu/nfa for those interested in learning more about it.)

2. Collective Bargaining in Nevada

Some of you are thinking, of course, why go to all that trouble. Why not just collectively bargain, thus guaranteeing by contract the due process rights of faculty through the use of third party arbitration? That is a reasonable question because it can be argued that in a very real sense we have developed our approach to Committee A concerns and legal defense as an alternative to meaningful collective bargaining. This has occurred because of the history of bargaining in Nevada public higher education and the negative political climate toward such bargaining in our state.

In 1971, two and one half years after I came to UNR, the top administrator for the state-wide system, in a surprise move, proposed a set of bargaining rules to the Nevada legislature. Those proposed rules were immediately seen by faculty leaders as very problematic, and they mobilized to block their adoption. I was asked to head up a team of faculty that went to the Legislature to speak on this issue. We succeeded through much hard work that involved obtaining information from national faculty organizations, including AAUP, demonstrating how "off the wall" some of the suggested provisions were.

After suffering defeat for his proposals in the legislature, the chancellor then proposed virtually the same set of rules to the regents, using the logic that they had the constitutional authority to adopt them. They were adopted forthwith, and stood for some time before a later chancellor allowed some changes in those rules, using a system-wide committee on which I was asked to serve.

Those early rules were tried one time, during the late 1970s. The community colleges, which originally were allowed to form their own unit, had a card drive and an election. The vote to bargain passed on three campuses but failed unanimously on one, which caused a defeat overall. This outcome led us in later years to work successfully for a definition of community college bargaining unit that did not require all colleges to be involved.

After the unsuccessful attempt to bargain at the community colleges, the regents modified the bargaining rules so that all employees in the system were in one bargaining unit. This definition made bargaining a virtual impossibility, although in 1984, after several years without any raises, we tried to move toward bargaining. With a prodigious effort we obtained signature cards from over 40% of all faculty in the system, calling for a bargaining election.

Faculty leaders throughout the system were pessimistic about winning a bargaining election, as was the national staff we consulted, and no election was held. We did use that card drive to get the attention of the legislature, however. In the legislative session that followed, which was the first to have a regular NFA lobbyist, higher education did very well, a fact that took the wind out of the effort to move toward bargaining. (We obtained an overall average raise of 21% over the next two years, plus a 5% bonus, and there were a number of other improvements in higher education funding.)

In the late 1980s some community colleges began to express a desire for the right to bargain as a separate unit. The NFA, which includes members from both the universities and community colleges, worked hard to gain this right for the community colleges. We threatened to raise the issue with the legislature if the regents did not modify the rules to allow the community colleges their own bargaining unit.

A state-wide regents' committee was established in early 1989 with two NFA representatives (one of which was me), along with several regents, some presidents, and the chief legal staff of the system. That committee eventually recommended significant positive modifications of the rules, including a separate unit for the community colleges. NFA representatives relied heavily on research done by AAUP staff on typical rules used around the country, and sought advice on tactics to use with the committee, as well. I am convinced that without that assistance from AAUP, the outcome would have been quite different.

Under the new rules we have had one community college, Truckee Meadows, enter into bargaining. The faculty at TMCC wanted to bargain because of a failure to allow meaningful faculty involvement in governance and a failure to properly apply the adopted salary schedule that the NFA had supported some years before. During my second term as NFA state president, a lengthy recruitment campaign and card drive ensued at TMCC, leading to an election which resulted in the selection of the NFA as the bargaining agent. After the election it took two years of hard bargaining before a contract was finally approved in 1995.

AAUP staffers worked very hard with us in the card drive and to win the election and bargain a contract, and we are grateful for this assistance. At the request of then-NFA state president Candace Kant, I was involved in the last phase of this bargaining, serving on the team that finalized the contract that was eventually approved. I was also involved in an advisory capacity in the two votes that were required before we got the contract approved by the faculty. (We had to fight off a decertification petition during the voting process, as well.)

Thus I have had considerable experience with collective bargaining, including lobbying the legislature on bargaining issues, serving on system committees dealing with bargaining rules, helping with card drives and elections, helping negotiate a contract and winning a contested ratification elections, as well as doing anything else to assist the bargaining process.

I strongly support collective bargaining as a right of all faculty, and think it may be a preferred solution in situations in which faculty voices are not heard or respected. Meaningful faculty involvement in governance can only occur in an atmosphere of mutual respect, and collective bargaining can sometimes foster that respect.

C. External Involvement in Faculty Governance

The philosophy of governance set forth above means much more than just involvement in the internal affairs of higher education campuses or systems. It also means that faculty, especially at public institutions, must be involved in the political arena. This is where many crucial decisions are made that impact higher education and faculty rights. Budgets are determined politically and many other matters of import to faculty arise in the political arena, as well. So, faculty and their organizations must find a way to represent themselves in such external forums.

My favorite definition of lobbying is this: "Lobbying is faculty governance writ large." Lobbying is faculty and their representatives being involved in any political forum in which decisions affecting them are being made. The AAUP engages in vigorous lobbying activities in Washington, under the rubric of "government relations." AAUP staff and officers represent the interests of faculty and higher education in the national political arena, activities that I consider a part of a broad definition of faculty governance.

I have been a part of such AAUP national activities for the last several years, serving on the Council, on the Executive Committee, as Chair of Committee R, which develops policy in the area of governmental relations, and as AAUP President. Before describing those activities, however, I want to share my experiences of lobbying for higher ed and faculty rights in Nevada over the past several decades.

The NFA has been regularly lobbying on behalf of higher education and faculty rights since its inception in 1984. Before that, faculty members, including myself, would lobby sporadically on issues that came up, such as the effort to pass onerous bargaining rules in 1971 that has been described.

The NFA lobbying involves efforts to educate political and opinion leaders both on and off the campuses about higher education. Here are some of the things that we have done, as we had dealt with the same kinds of problems of funding, micro-management by non-academics, and attacks on faculty workload and tenure that have arisen elsewhere across the country.

1. Contacts with Governors, Budget Directors, and the Media

The Nevada Faculty Alliance is actively involved in the external political environment in Nevada. We regularly meet with Governors and their chiefs of staff, state budget directors and their staffs, as well as with legislators and legislative staff to explain the needs of higher education and how universities and community colleges operate. We of the NFA define such sessions as informational, but also as informal bargaining sessions with those who exercise control over funding. We also meet on occasion with editorial boards of major newspapers, and seek other forums to explain the needs of higher education.

We started having these sorts of contacts systematically in 1984, prior to the 1985 legislative session. In a meeting with the Governor and his budget director that year, we raised the issue on a better compensation program and better funding formulas to allow more staff to be hired.

This meeting led directly to the establishment of a separate salary pool, above any cost-of-living raises, of two to two and one half per cent per year. This separate pool has funded the NFA-developed community college salary schedule as well as the university merit pool ever since, contributing greatly to raising average salaries within our system. This same meeting also led to the establishment of different funding ratios for engineering related disciplines which led to the hiring of a large number of new faculty throughout the system.

We have continued meetings with governors and their budget staffs since 1984, and have found them a very productive way to let top political leaders know about faculty views concerning higher education needs. We need to find ways to promote such access with top level political figures in every state in the country!

That same fall some of us met, along with the president of UNR, with the editorial board of the Reno newspaper about the dismal situation of our salaries at that time. The system compensation committee, chaired by an NFA member, had recommended a 31% raise request for the biennium, and this recommendation had been accepted by the regents and submitted to the Governor. The Reno paper later published an editorial entitled, "31% is Not Enough," which is my favorite editorial headline of all time!

One result of this contact with governors has been NFA representation on the state-wide committee that handles health benefits for all state employees, including faculty. In 1983 Governor Bryan appointed me to this committee, which I chaired for the next six years. We were handling $50 million a year when I left the committee. Other NFA members have occupyed the higher-ed slot on this important committee since then. Also, this year, Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn appointed me to a statewide committee to study funding formulats for higher education.

2. Political Action Committee

NFA chapters occasionally invite politicians to our campuses, sponsoring educational presentations about funding needs for higher education. These sessions have been quite useful, as has our program of maintaining contact with political figures (and their staffs) when the legislature is not in session.

The NFA has also established a Political Action Committee to endorse candidates and collect contributions with a dues check-off system developed back in the early 1980s. The NFA-PAC helps recruit and endorse candidates for regent, for the legislature, and for some state-wide offices. Contributions are given to some candidates for regent and for the state legislature, using recommendations developed by our state-wide PAC, which also happens to be the same people that serve on the state-wide NFA board. In addition, we sometimes help endorsed candidates in other ways, such as walking precincts for them or assisting with a mailing.

This kind of activity has increased the NFA's political credibility immensely. One recent election we had 25 of 26 endorsees win their election. This past legislative session the majority of both money committee were NFA endorsees, making appearances before those committee much more pleasurable and effective than used to be the case!

Developing PACs may not be suited to all situations, of course, but the NFA has found this to be an effective tool to use in developing awareness of the NFA and its agenda of improving higher ed in Nevada.

3. Government Relations and Lobbying

As indicated, the NFA has also been very active in lobbying, especially with the Nevada legislature, since 1985. Committee R is encouraging more of this type of activity around the country, a move which I strongly support.

I have had the honor of being the chief NFA lobbyist since 1984, although I have been assisted on numerous occasions by other NFA leaders. In the nine sessions since we started regular lobbying I have testified over 250 times on behalf of higher education funding and faculty rights, and I work regularly with legislators and their staffs outside committee hearings.

The NFA is a regular player in the lobbying corps at the Nevada legislature, working with other members of the higher ed lobbying team and others interested in higher education. The higher ed lobbying team has been quite effective as a team since we started working together, with regular salary increases, dramatic increases in the number of faculty and support positions, and increased student aid, as well. (See my "Twelve steps of effective lobbying," also on this website, which I wrote for use in Committee R presentations, as a result of this experience.)

The NFA also lobbies the system administration and the regents, working with them on matters that arise which impact faculty rights and the quality of higher education. We have pushed hard, for instance, for more full-time faculty at the community colleges, and for raising the pay levels of part-time faculty. We also seek changes in the code, working with the senate chairs so that faculty speak with a coordinated voice. Recently the regents approved an NFA-initiated code change to allow mediation in some personnel disputes. We are involved in development of the compensation request package sent to the governor and legislature, as well as other budget issues. NFA representatives regularly monitor regents meetings to keep on top of developments within higher education in Nevada.

4. Government Relations Within AAUP

AAUP does many things at the national level. I have been a part of these national activities over the years, including a term I served on Council in the early 1990s, which included service on the Executive Committee.

Most AAUP members, including myself, would agree that its most important function is what happens through Committee A, which is responsible for monitoring and enforcing standards of academic freedom, including defending tenure as forcefully as possible. As indicated above, I have seen AAUP national staff of Committee A in action defending academic freedom in my own state, and I was very glad they were there, and that they had the credibility to be effective.

Having said that, I would suggest that in these times another very important function for the AAUP is representing the values and principles of the AAUP at the national level and promoting similar activities at state and local levels.

Many of you know of the effective work of the government relations staff, Ruth Flower and Mark Smith, at the national level on such issues as funding for student aid, reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, funding for the arts and in support of funding for science and health research, attacks on faculty intellectual property rights, and efforts to obtain research data from researchers before publication.

This excellent staff, in consultation with Committee R, also worked to defeat the ominous TEAM Act, and continues to look for ways to achieve the legislative overturning of the Yeshiva decision. The AAUP has been worked with the Congressional committee to study the costs of higher education, succeeding in avoiding a report that would have blamed faculty for tuition increases.

In recent years the excellent work done at the national level has been complemented with the development of considerable prowess at the local and state levels. Government relations staff have organized and participated in workshops around the country, teaching AAUP members how to better represent themselves in political settings. The staff have helped organized effective testimony in a number of states on issues that include attacks on tenure, sabbaticals, faculty workload, and other issues of import to faculty.

The work of the government relations staff is guided and assisted by Committee R, the Government Relations Committee. I was privileged to serve on Committee R for nearly four years, the last three as its chair.

I strongly believe in what Committee R and the government relations staff are doing. Such efforts fit well the activist personal philosophy of governance stated at the outset of this presentation. I also strongly support the recent charge given to Committee R to develop a more effective AAUP presence at state and local levels, and I have participated in a number of workshops and programs helping promote this new thrust of Committee R. Most AAUP members are at public institutions, and we must learn how to effectively represent those faculty in forums where decisions are made about those institutions at which they practice their profession.

I believe I was given the opportunity to work with Committee R because of the successful experience we of the NFA have had in Nevada. In closing I will briefly describe this experience, just to demonstrate some of the fruits of our efforts which have developed a strong AAUP state conference in Nevada. I do this because the problems we have faced in Nevada are similar to those being faced all around the country. I believe our experiences are generalizable to other contexts, and I would work toward that end if elected AAUP president.

D. Nevada Higher Education and the NFA

Nevada has often led the nation in recent years in terms of percentage increase in funding for higher education. We are hiring several hundred new full-time tenure-track faculty this biennium in Nevada. We have had salary increases every year since 1985, including an average 11.4% raise for this biennium, and all our institutions have improved their relative position on compensation against comparable institutions across the country.

In this year's legislative session we saw higher ed's portion of the state general fund remain steady at about 19.5%. We have also been able to stop any serious efforts by the legislature to micro-manage higher ed on such issues as faculty workload or tenure (but knock on wood; one never knows when such issues may arise!).

I am not foolish enough to seek full credit for this dramatically positive picture for the NFA. Many things have worked together to bring it about, including the demographic fact of Nevada being a very rapidly growing state, coupled with very effective leadership we have had in Nevada from some system officials and campus presidents, not to mention some top politicians who want Nevada higher education to grow and improve.

But, I am pleased that NFA has played an important role in developing this positive picture for higher education in Nevada. We have worked hard over the years within the internal workings of the system and our campuses to make them effective places for students to learn, and effective places for faculty involvement in governance. We generally work very well with faculty senates and most administrations in our system. (Indeed, it is a rare year that does not see the majority of senate chairs in the system being NFA members).

One of the reasons the NFA is effective within the system, is, of course, the fact that we have some clout outside the system, by virtue of our efforts over the years to engage in the kinds of external governance activities that I have described. NFA's clout also derives in part from its affiliation with AAUP: we are proud to be the state conference of AAUP for Nevada.

It also helps, of course, that NFA has developed the effective legal defense policy I described. That policy makes administrations within the system treat faculty, especially NFA members, with more respect than otherwise might be the case. And, it helps that faculty have the right to bargain and have successfully done so in Nevada (even if with considerable difficulty).

We now have several important tools to use in concert to protect faculty rights and to support the continued improvement of higher education in Nevada. We try to wield these tools effectively, as we work with a much more responsive Board of Regents, with a system administration and campus administrations that are usually respectful of faculty input, and with a political structure that is more responsive to the needs of higher education.

The same tools that we have developed in Nevada have application elsewhere, as faculty around the country fight to defend higher education and faculty rights! I want to continue to lead that fight as AAUP President.

E. Closing Pledge and Request for Support

I have gone into some detail about what has happened with higher education in Nevada and with the development of the NFA for one simply reason. I have been molded by my experiences in Nevada; this is who I am! I have also been greatly influenced by my experiences working at the national level over the years as an AAUP officer, as Chair of Committee R, and as AAUP president.

If you like what you have heard about what we have done in Nevada to protect faculty rights and to gain support for higher education, and if you like the philosophy being implemented by Committee R at this time, then you should consider supporting my candidacy. I bring the same energy and vision to the presidency of AAUP that I have been using in my work at the national level of AAUP and within Nevada's AAUP state conference.

That vision that I and others have used in Nevada has led to the development of an effective state-wide faculty organization that combines both community colleges and universities, collective bargaining chapters and non-bargaining chapters, and which speaks with one voice in forums where decisions are being made about higher education.

That unified voice has been absolutely essential to our success in Nevada. If re-elected president of AAUP I will continue to work to accomplish the same unity on the national level. I want to unify the profession under the banner of AAUP, helping bridge the gaps (chasms?) that sometimes exist between CB and non-CB units, between community colleges and universities, between regions, between faculty and administrations and faculty and boards of trustees, and between higher education and the political structure.

I want to help all involved in higher education understand that everyone responsible for higher education in our society has something in common, and that which we share is much more important than our differences.

I want a strong and unified faculty voice at any table where decisions are being made about higher education, and I want that voice to be respected and heeded as we face the challenges of the future for higher education in America. Please support me if you share that vision!