My name is Marcus Johnson, assistant professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. I am running for the position of Delegate with the United Faculty for a Common Good (UFCG) Slate.

As an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, I am grateful for the formation of the UFCG. The AAUP-AFT chapter at UMD has joined AAUP-AFT advocacy local 6741 because we lack a fundamental democratic right, the right to collectively bargain with our employers for better wages and working conditions. I am employed by a public institution in a state where Democrats hold a super majority in the legislature and have a lock on the governorship. Maryland may seem a far cry from the right-wing political assault being waged against higher-ed institutions in states like Texas and Florida. But is it? As I see it, we are linked by a common struggle – the struggle to empower higher ed workers to organize and fight back. Whether we’re facing challenges from University admins that refuse to pay fair wages or community members that want to limit Pro-Palestinian activism on campus or the increasing adjunctification of our work force, we have an untapped collective power— a network that can expand across faculty rank, across institutions, and across states to unite all faculty for a higher education system that serves the common good.

I am running under the UFCG slate, because it models this collective vision of coast-to-coast, wall-to-wall organizing. Our power is collective. Our mission is clear and well defined. And we will use this advocacy chapter to build labor power on our campuses and to organize direct political action to create a system of higher education that works toward the common good!