My name is Chenjerai Kumanyika and I am running for the position of at- large member of the AAUP as part of the United Faculty for the Common Good slate.

These are really challenging times and we all understand after years of eating away at our budgets and faculty governance there are forces that want to turn our universities into corporations, crush our academic freedoms, saddle us with more debt and divide us. All of this is going to gain more momentum with the coming election. It’s important to remember that we’ve won before during challenging times. And that's why the coherent and unified vision for an AAUP that is willing that our slate is bringing is more important than ever. Even during the pandemic, because the scholars and leaders on this slate were organized we were able to carve some powerful wins - and we have similar opportunities and responsibilities before us right now.

I come to AAUP through my experience as an African-American tenure-track faculty member who has experienced and struggled through moments of disempowerment, organizing and tremendous victory in the university. I’ve lived and worked in South Carolina, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York, and I’ve seen how transformative organizing in higher education can be when we forge alliances with their broader communities and prioritize the common good.

I’ve experienced what it's like to work in conditions where workers don't have collective bargaining rights, places where tenure track faculty don't work in solidarity with non-tenure track faculty, staff or students, and where workers in higher education aren't in solidarity with the broader community. The outlines won't be surprising and I would see it again and again at multiple institutions. Especially for the non tenure track faculty, this meant increasing course loads, decreasing pay, and more unrecognized service commitments. I listened to stories of staff who had experienced forms of racial and sexual harassment - but feared retaliation if they attempted to take action. Many of the staff had come to Clemson University in hopes of taking advantage of education benefits and credits promised to them. But in practice, university administrators found a variety of mechanisms to deny these benefits. Without a union or leverage, most staff lived in fear of retaliation if they raised these concerns.

My time in higher education has also overlapped with the rise of the several national movements including Black Lives Matter, Me Too, the resistance to the Trump administration, Travel bans, Occupy ICE, and conservative movements against DEI and the humanities more broadly and currently the move for divestment from war profiteering and attacks on Gaza. Each of these developments impacted the community, students, staff, and faculty in substantial ways. While these issues have galvanized sections of our community, our leverage over university administrations and our ability to stand up for the common good could have been strengthened by an AAUP that was willing to play a more engaged role in these fights.

Both collective bargaining chapters and advocacy chapters play key roles in what we are taking on. Currently, at New York University in our advocacy chapter. I've joined students, faculty, and staff across the world on the front lines as the spectacle of cops on campus and suppression of human rights, academic freedom and scholasticide abroad is pulling the higher education community together across disciplines, political opinions and work classifications to fight for the common good. And advocacy chapters were pivotal in calling for a national day of action.

So I look forward to getting to know more of my colleagues and fellow workers in universities and communities across the country, learning more about what’s important to you and fighting with you.