My name is Amy Offner and I am a candidate for the position of delegate in the AAUP Advocacy Local 6741 of the AFT. I am running as part of the United Faculty for the Common Good (UFCG) slate because I have seen what rank-and-file caucuses and reform slates have accomplished in other unions, most recently the UAW, and because I admire the organizing undertaken by the other members of this slate. I also think that, as a matter of principle and as a matter of internal democracy, it is good for rank-and-file members and locally elected leadership of advocacy chapters to serve as the leadership of the advocacy chapter local. I hope that we can make the AAUP and the AFT more powerful and democratic organizations capable of mobilizing members and building wall-to-wall solidarity within higher ed, defending the public mission of higher education, and building a more just and democratic society.

I am the president of AAUP-Penn and an associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the last year, during my term as president, our AAUP chapter has worked to support union organizing drives and contract campaigns on campus; mobilized to improve access to family leave and academic freedom protections for non-tenure-track faculty; demanded fair pay for faculty with disabilities; and defended academic freedom and the right to protest in the face of a coordinated national assault by donors who would like control what can be taught and discussed in the United States.

We have also helped organize the April 17 National Day of Action for Higher Education for the Public Good—and if you want to find out about it, please reach out to me. The National Day of Action arose from conversations this year among chapters that felt we were all experiencing very serious crises and needed to respond in a coordinated way. We needed to build solidarity and create the infrastructure to mobilize AAUP members nationwide in a powerful way. We’ve been bringing together higher ed labor organizations across the country, and I hope April 17 will lead to ongoing mobilization among higher ed labor organizations.

Before becoming a historian, I worked as a union organizer.