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AAUP–Penn stands in solidarity with Columbia University’s graduate workers union (GWC-UAW local 2110) and its members’ decision to go on strike, beginning on March 15, 2021. Columbia’s graduate workers voted to unionize in 2016 and still do not have a contract. The American Association of University Professors has long supported the right of graduate workers to unionize—a right reconfirmed in the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) 2016 decision on the Columbia graduate workers’ unionization vote. We call on the Columbia University administration to cease violating its legal obligation to bargain with the union in good faith, to retract its threats to dock past pay for those participating in the strike, and to respect the rights of graduate workers to unionize. To support our colleagues striking at Columbia, you can sign up to join a digital picket line, or contribute to their hardship fund.

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As Penn faculty—members and non-members of the AAUP—we object to the proposed university-wide course schedule changes that add to the length of class meeting times. While we recognize the convenience of spacing out course blocks to allow a longer transitional period between classes, the apparent elimination of the existing ten minutes of “passing time” built into our current course blocks makes this schedule change amount to a tacit addition of ten minutes of teaching per class period. When faculty have asked whether the modified schedule indeed extends teaching time, administrators have not provided a decisive answer. This abrupt and unilaterally imposed change concerns us on three major grounds: 1) Its implementation is inconsistent with shared governance principles; 2) it represents a demand for additional instructional time without compensation; and 3) its impact will fall hardest on faculty members who do the most teaching, for instance language lecturers.

1. Shared Governance:  Changes to the manner in which faculty teach courses fall within the purview of those areas of governance in which faculty are meant to have primary responsibility. Yet in this case, as with other policy changes recently announced by the central administration, faculty were largely cut out of the decision-making process.

2. Additional Instructional Time:  The addition of 10 minutes of instructional time per class period for each session of a course is a non-trivial change in work expectations for all faculty. For an instructor teaching two courses per semester, each of which meets twice per week, this adds 40 minutes of classroom time per week, which translates into 9 1/3 hours of additional teaching over a semester (or the equivalent, in instructional time, of seven 80-minute periods added to the semester). We have not seen any indication that instructors will be compensated for this additional work time.

3. Hurting Those Who Teach the Most:  Those most affected, however, will be language lecturers and others who shoulder the highest teaching load at Penn.  A language lecturer who teaches three courses per semester, in five contact hours a week, will end up teaching an additional 35 hours per term. 

For standing faculty, increased teaching time directly detracts from the time available for other work obligations and professional activities, including research, advising, service, and indeed even preparation for the courses we teach. It thus pushes those work obligations further into our own already limited personal time on evenings and weekends. For non-standing faculty who are paid per course, and likewise for graduate instructors and TAs, the addition of instructional time without any change in compensation is, still more unambiguously, a form of wage theft.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), whose chapter at Penn was founded in 2020, is a national organization of faculty and academic professionals that has helped to shape U.S. higher education by developing standards and procedures that maintain quality in education, fair employment conditions, shared governance, and academic freedom. Penn’s AAUP chapter is concerned about a perceived lack of transparency in institutional decision-making at our university (of which this schedule change issue is only one example) and about working conditions for all those who teach at Penn. 

We call on the University of Pennsylvania senior administration, however belatedly, to initiate dialogue with faculty about the effects of these changes and undertake actions to mitigate their impact on faculty, including on those who may be excessively burdened by additional uncompensated teaching hours. 

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Introducing AAUP–Penn
We are proud to announce the formation of the University of Pennsylvania chapter of the American Association of University Professors. AAUP–Penn is a membership organization that advocates for shared university governance, equitable work conditions for all employees, and a just university that meets its obligations to the city and the community. We welcome members from all departments and schools at Penn, and we apply the broadest definition of faculty: all those employed primarily in teaching and/or research at a professional level regardless of title, including standing faculty, contingent faculty, graduate scholars and instructors, postdoctoral fellows, and librarians and instructional technicians whose work is substantially involved in research or teaching.

About AAUP
Founded in 1915, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has advocated for academic freedom and job security, shared governance that prioritizes the voice of faculty, and social equality for over a century. It helps to define professional ethics in higher education and to set pedagogical standards for teaching and learning that foster a just society. AAUP centers meaningful faculty participation in institutional decision-making, defines equitable policies of academic employment and promotion, and builds solidarity across campuses. It represents academic employees of universities and colleges in labor disputes and fights for the economic security of the profession.

Why Join
Penn faculty have come together both in response to local concerns about administrative decision-making and at a moment of wider concern about the future of higher education in the U.S. We take this step in good company, alongside forty other new AAUP chapters that have formed in the past two years. We believe in higher education for the common good, and we stand for a more egalitarian conception of the university, for racial justice and gender equality on and off campus, and for a deeper structural commitment to the Philadelphia communities that enable us to function. Joining our chapter by joining AAUP gives members a direct voice in shaping our advocacy, and it is an important expression of solidarity with colleagues of all ranks at Penn and across the profession.

Our Goals
AAUP–Penn’s broadest goals are to promote meaningfully shared governance, to secure better work conditions for all employees, and to advocate for the most vulnerable members of our community and ensure stronger material support for the city. We summarize under these headings some specific goals proposed by members:

Shared University Governance

  • Faculty involvement in policy and budgetary decisions affecting our work and our community
  • Decision-making at the central and school levels that prioritizes Penn’s research and teaching mission and rejects the call for austerity
  • Greater transparency regarding Penn’s budget

Better Work Conditions

  • Job security, fair compensation, and full benefits for staff and for all Penn workers
  • Clear and stable terms of employment for adjunct faculty
  • Fair pay and job security for lecturers and for all contingent faculty
  • Adequate and affordable childcare for faculty and graduate employees
  • Funding and time extensions to allow all current Penn graduate researchers to complete their programs successfully
  • Better institutional support for junior faculty, many of whom are heavily burdened by lack of childcare and other unaccommodated care demands on top of increased workloads during the pandemic
  • Equitable compensation at all ranks, to remedy glaring inequities in salary and promotion for women and faculty of color 
  • Recognition of uneven workloads and service expectations within ranks, which have intensified during the pandemic for faculty and for instructional support staff

Accountability to the Community

  • Material rather than symbolic commitment to racial justice on and off campus, including the need for Penn’s consistent investment in Philadelphia’s public schools and existing community infrastructure 
  • Cutting ties to the PPD and changing Penn’s approach to community safety

Our chapter has formed committees to address the status of contingent faculty, women and minority faculty, and graduate student-workers; racial justice and university–community relations; and faculty governance. Members with the means to do so have contributed to a fund that subsidizes membership in the national organization for grads, adjuncts, and others needing support. We are one faculty at Penn, and we invite colleagues of all ranks and from all schools to join us in advocating for a more equitable university.

We are energized by the possibility of democratic, consultative governance at Penn that involves not only all faculty but also staff, students, and community members. Our collective desire to help shape the university’s priorities is by no means an unachievable ideal; we pledge to do all we can to make it our reality.