Hello. My name is Bethany Letiecq. I am running as part of the United Faculty for the Common Good (UFCG) slate for the position of Vice-President of our Local 6741. As a slate, we believe that our advocacy local can be a powerful force for change both within AAUP and AFT and at the national level. We want to bring more resources and supports to advocacy chapters nationwide because we believe there is great untapped power there. And given the attacks we are facing in higher education, both at the institutional level and as individual faculty, we need to seriously organize to fight back.  

I am also asking for your support because I believe that Local 6741 should be represented by leaders of advocacy chapters who know what it takes to organize and build power, especially in right to work states. I have been on the ground organizing at George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public university for nearly a decade now, fighting undue donor influence, adjunctification, privatization of presidential and provost searches, and most recently fighting governing board overreach into faculty affairs and my own case of targeted harassment by the alt-right.  It is clear to me more than ever that we must organize, and build power in every sector of higher education in order to meet this moment and fight for our academic freedom rights and for our very democracy.

I have a lot of experience to bring to bear at this critical moment. 

I am a tenured Associate Professor of Research Methods in the college of education and human development at Mason and co-founder of the Anti-Racist and Decolonizing Research Collaborative there. I not only have experience as an advocacy chapter leader, but I have also served for years on the Faculty Senate and am co-founder of the GMU Coalition for Worker Rights. Currently, I am serving as president of the VA conference of the AAUP supporting chapter development across the Commonwealth. Years ago, I served on AFT’s Higher Education Program and Policy Council and, most recently, I served on the AAUP/AFT Partnership Implementation and Coordination Team that worked to support our new AAUP-AFT affiliation. 

If elected, I will bring my knowledge as a critical feminist and anti-racist scholar, my skills as a scholar-advocate and scholar-activist, as well as my organizing chops to bear as we work together to build from the ground up a powerful Local and meet this moment of crisis in higher education. Thank you for your consideration and I ask for your vote and support of the UFCG Slate!