From mid-July to early August, over one hundred Academic Professional Faculty (APF) came together as a collective for the first-ever PSU-AAUP Summer Summit for APF. The three, one-hour sessions created a space for APF to identify and prioritize issues and concerns specific to academic professional faculty as well as to build meaningful solidarity and strength for future action.
Core Objectives of the three sessions were:
- “Clarifying Issues which specifically impact academic professionals AP Issues”: A broad range of APF issues were identified and then organized under themes, such as “workload” and “professional development.”
- “Developing Strategies”: APF leaders shared information about four major strategies that could best address the issues discussed from the first session.
- “Organizing Ourselves for Power”: APFs dug deeper into potential educational opportunities for APFs throughout the year to build power and knowledge around the major issues that APFs expressed in earlier sessions.
Thanks to the APF Summit Organizing Committee: Courtney Bailey (SALP), David Duke (IA), Andres Guzman (SALP), Karen Kennedy (ACS), Karen Popp (OGS), Matt Sagayaga (Financial Aid), Shayna Snyder (WLL), and Crystal Tenty (Admissions) who met throughout the spring and summer to make it all happen. The APF summit organizing committee would also like to thank the dozens of participating academic professionals whose voices helped to articulate the relevant issues and problem solve and discuss strategic solutions. In the coming weeks, look for member workshops on topics of interest that will be invaluable as input for the Collective Bargaining Team in preparation for 2019 bargaining.
Academic professional faculty who want to help with next steps, or stay involved in other ways, may contact any member of the organizing committee. Together, we will continue to make meaningful change that betters the professional lives of our PSU-AAUP members!
CB/twm 8/27/18