My name is Matthew Thomas Miller, and I am a candidate for the position of delegate in the AAUP Advocacy Local 6741 of AFT. I have decided to run because I want to help make AAUP and AFT into the unions that higher education needs to meet this dangerous moment we are facing.   

I am running as part of the United Faculty for the Common Good (UFCG) slate because we share a conviction that higher education is under assault and we need to organize and fight back. The crisis of higher education is decades in the making and won’t be fixed with a business as usual approach. Issuing declarations and reports alone will not stop the attacks on academic freedom from politicians, unelected boards of trustees, and wealthy donors, nor will it secure the increased funding for higher education that we desperately need to reverse the adjunctification of the professoriate and stop burdening students with spiraling levels of debt. We believe that the only way to create the system of higher education that we need is through a commitment to building labor power and solidarity, uniting faculty of all ranks and building coalitions with our other campus (non-faculty) colleagues, and expanding political power through coalitions with allied student, climate, and social justice organizations at the local and national levels, among others. We take inspiration from other grassroots and rank-in-file labor organizations—foremost Higher Education Labor United (HELU), but also those in K-12 education and other sectors, such as Caucus of Rank-in-File Educators (CORE), Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), and Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU)—that are focused on transforming their unions, local and national communities, and the broader political landscape through organizing and direct political action.

Members of the UFCG slate believe in the radical idea that higher education should serve the common good. It must be an incubator of critical inquiry, unapologetic dissent, and rigorous research free from political, donor, or corporate interference. Higher education should be a building block of a healthy democracy and an economy that works for all. It must be an engine for social mobility, challenging forms of systemic oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, age, (dis)ability, immigration status, or colonialism. And all who work in higher education must be paid fairly and enjoy job security. 

I am asking for your support for my candidacy and those of my fellow UFCG slate members because we believe a better university is possible and worth fighting for. Join us, and help us build higher education for the common good.