Summer Institute at Morehouse College in Atlanta: July 17–20

The 2025 Summer Institute presents a crucial opportunity for AFT and AAUP members to learn how to fight back while continuing to advance our shared vision for higher education that serves our students and our communities, drives our regional and national economies, and is truly affordable and accessible to all. We are bringing the Summer Institute to Morehouse College, a historically Black institution, in order to emphasize our continued commitments to racial equity, highlight the ongoing and meaningful role that HBIs play in the realization of our national democratic ideals, and recognize the organizing being done by scholars of color. 

Join us in Atlanta, where you will learn how to organize, communicate, and advocate strategically in the company of other higher ed activists. The skills you learn in the Summer Institute’s workshops and trainings will help you defend your coworkers, students, campus, and profession. We will discuss local organizing campaigns on both individual campuses and big-picture, nationwide strategies for winning just and equitable higher education across the sector. For those who are able to arrive on Wednesday, we will be offering a one-day Skills to Win workshop on Thursday, July 17, that will introduce members to basic organizing techniques. For those who are able to stay through Sunday, July 20, we will be offering a mass mobilization and direct action training to provide us all with the tools we need to help build a movement to truly realize our vision for higher education and democracy. 

All AAUP and AFT members are welcome at the Summer Institute—no experience necessary! Together, we will organize, fight, and win. 

Register here.

Town Hall: June 9 at 7 pm ET / 4 pm PT

Join a discussion with guest Seth Freeman, president of the Congress for Community Colleges in Connecticut (SEIU), Heather Steffen, of Faculty First Responders, and AAUP Council member Chenjerai Kumanyika on the power of organizing to face challenges in higher ed. Find the registration link in your email.

Town Hall: May 19 at 7 pm ET / 4 pm PT

Join a discussion with guest Puya Gerami and AAUP Council member Chenjerai Kumanyika on the power of organizing to face challenges in higher ed. Find the registration link in your email inbox.

Town Hall: Building Power in Higher Ed Now with Astra Taylor

Monday, March 10
4 pm PT / 5 pm MT / 6 pm MT / 7 pm ET

AAUP Council member Chenjerai Kumanyika will host special guest Astra Taylor, to discuss what is at stake for democracy in the fight for higher education, and Rutgers AAUP-AFT organizer Trent McDonald, who will lead a discussion on practical questions around organizing workers in the STEM fields.

Astra Taylor is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and activist. Her films include Examined Life, and her books include Democracy May Not Exist But We'll Miss it When It's Gone and The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart. She is co-founder of the Debt Collective.

Register here.

Observer Training: How to Support Your Colleagues in a Disciplinary Meeting

Thursday, March 13, 2025
1–2 pm ET / 12–1 pm CT / 11 am–12 pm MT / 10–11 am PT

A workshop for members of advocacy chapters and bargaining chapters. Members will look at the important steps to take when accompanying a colleague to a disciplinary meeting in a union and nonunion context.

Register here.

Skills to Win Training

February 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26
Mondays and Wednesdays
4-6 pm PT / 5–5 pm MT / 6–8 pm CT / 7-9 pm ET
Zoom

As we’ve seen increasing attacks against our right to teach, research, and advocate for higher education as a public good, we also know what we have to do in response: organize with even greater purpose. Groups from campuses across the country will be joining this workshop over three weeks in February, run by Jane McAlevey’s Skills to Win program and Bargaining for the Common Good. The program will help hone and develop member and leader organizing skills so that we can stand together, fight back, and build a better future for ourselves, our students, and higher education.  

Faculty and staff who join the training will develop the fundamental organizing skills to win campaigns. Whether you are a rank-and-file member or a chapter leader, the course is designed to be practical. We will focus on how to build high-participation chapters and campaigns using a structure-based approach, including how to:

• Identify organic leaders who can move your base,

• Hold successful organizing conversations,

• Learn to chart your campus,

• Integrate structure tests into your campaign or organizing plan, and

• Organize on your campus to build the power to win bigger and bolder demands.

In six, 2-hour sessions, this training will consist of an opening plenary with a variety of lectures, discussions, role plays, and presentations from different labor and community organizers. You will have time in breakout groups to work on exercises and on your specific campaign.

Groups go through the training in cohorts of at least 5 participants per local. The more participants per local, the better the experience will be. The Group Coordinator is responsible for recruitment, sharing materials, and hosting breakout sessions on their own Zoom.

If you are signing up alone we’ll help connect you with a group on or near your campus so you can take the training as a group. The training will consist of an opening plenary with a variety of lectures, discussions, role plays, and presentations from different labor and community organizers. You will have time in breakout groups with faculty on your campus to work on exercises and on your specific campaign. 

Register here for Skills to Win

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Agenda:

• Session 1: February 10 , 6-8 pm — Leader Identification 
  The central importance of learning to identify leaders by understanding the difference between an organic leader and an activist.

• Session 2, February 12 , 6-8 pm — Semantics
  The specific words you use matter. The use of the words “we” and “us” by organizers and activists can allow people to fall into an anonymous collective without understanding their own individual agency is key to win the change they want.

• Session 3, February 17 , 6-8 pm — Structured Organizing Conversations
  Participants understand why, in order to move leaders, it requires a 6-step Structured Organizing Conversation.

• Session 4, February 19 , 6-8 pm — Moving Tough Leaders- Affirm Answer Redirect
  It helps to show why winning over leaders requires a 6-step structured organizing conversation, and how you adapt and deal with the hardest-to-move leaders. It helps to show why winning over leaders requires a 6-step structured organizing conversation, and how you adapt and deal with the hardest-to-move leaders.

• Session 5, February 24 , 6-8 pm — Charting & Structure Tests
  In order to have power, workers/people must build strong worksite/building/site structures across every worksite/building/neighborhood. The tools for building strong worksite structures include charting and the consistent use of structure tests so that you know your strong and weak areas and how to prioritize your efforts.

• Session 6, February 26 , 6-8 pm — Bargaining for the Common Good
  Organized labor and organized communities together can create the aligned campaigns and coalition capable of combating growing inequality, racism, and the billionaire/corporate domination of the economy.

Organize Every Campus Town Hall Feat. Eric Blanc

Tuesday, January 21, 2025
7 pm ET / 6 pm CT / 5 pm MT / 4 pm PT

Join AAUP for an organizing town hall meeting at 7–8 p.m. ET / 4–5 p.m. PT. We will hear from labor activist Eric Blanc, author of We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big. Eric is an organizer trainer in the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, which he helped co-found in March 2020. He directs The Worker to Worker Collaborative, a center to help unions and rank-and-file groups scale up their efforts by expanding their members’ involvement and leadership.

We’ll also hear about how to identify an organizing issue on campus. At our institutions we face no shortage of challenges, whether it’s cuts in state funding, consolidation of departments and resources, crumbling facilities, or interference into what we teach and research. Tonight, we’ll talk through the pros and cons of different approaches to identifying an issue to use for an organizing campaign.