For almost a century, the American Association of University Professors has represented the moral high ground in the battle for academic freedom. It has recently gotten more and more involved in the related issue of contingent employment, emphasizing that job security equals academic freedom, and the lack of it – contingent employment -- deletes it. With all this in mind, several leaders of our FA, namely Lantz Simpson, FA President, Kathy Sucher, VP, Mitra Moassessi, Chief Negotiator, and myself, Editor and Political Director, have become active in the AAUP, forming our own Santa Monica College Chapter, and as part of that, we four went of the national AAUP Summer Institute in Reno, Nevada, July 19-22.

It was held on the spacious campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, which, at 5,000 feet, was quite comfortable even in late July when we arrived for the annual event. The bulk of our time, in morning and afternoon sessions, was spent in various different workshops we all attended, some of which lasted two full days. They covered negotiations, arbitrations, grievances, organizing, chapter formation, and the like. As we discussed our experiences, the value of the national scope of the AAUP became clear; we were able in all the seminars to compare our own local situations with those from other systems and other states, and thus gain further insight into them. Swapping war stories over meals from the excellent campus food services added to the intellectual energy, as strangers became colleagues.

Overall, I would say the issue of contingency was, understandably, on everyone's mind, as higher ed has fully realized what a dangerous position it is now in, being threatened on one side by the rapidly growing for-profits, where both tenure and academic freedom are practically non-existent, and the continuing growth of contingent faculty on the other, which now covers over 60% of the workforce in higher ed.

The profession has changed, and not for the better, in the working lifetime of one generation. If it's going to change back, we're starting to realize, it's going to take, in all probability, just as long to fix it as it took to break in the first place. Which is another generation, at least. 

All in all it was an intellectually vigorous, even bracing experience. Beyond that, it was great to spend time with our good friend, Craig Flanery, AAUP west coast secretary.  And on Friday night we all got to take a sunset cruise on Lake Tahoe, where some of us danced and most of us knew the words to the old 60's songs, or at least could fake them well. We all came home tired and filled to the brim with good thoughts and ideas. We'll be back.