Dear Colleagues,
We received this invitation from the AFT. We are posting it here for all who are interested in attending.
With the new administration and Congress come new opportunities to ensure significant, sustainable public investment in higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the long-standing crisis in public higher education. Declining state support, the erosion of tenure and shared governance, the increased use of contingent appointments, and the loss of the faculty voice on campus are threatening the core mission of higher education in our society. Now is the time to stand up for a just, inclusive system of higher education—one that can help transform our society.
We need a new deal for higher education.
Together with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and allies and supporters across the higher education community, we’re proposing an ambitious agenda that centers on four main values:
- building prosperity from the bottom up;
- advancing social, racial, and economic justice;
- strengthening democracy and civil society; and
- fostering knowledge and innovation.
The New Deal for Higher Education platform will seek to recenter our public colleges and universities as a common good. In addition to addressing tuition costs, institutional funding, and student debt relief, we will pursue reforms related to racial injustice and inequities, labor practices, academic freedom and governance, federal research funding, technical and vocational education, and a host of other challenges that have diminished our national capacity to educate our communities.
To kick off the campaign, we will be holding an online roundtable discussion on February 10 with AAUP president Irene Mulvey, AFT president Randi Weingarten, and our partners at Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education and the Roosevelt Institute.