PSUFA is participating in the National Day of Action, Wednesday April 17, a nationwide mobilization calling for publicly funded higher education for all, freedom to teach and learn, job security and fair pay, equity and racial justice, and democratic governance of our institutions! Read more about The Future We Stand For, endorsed by our comrades and colleagues across the country.
There are two events on Wednesday April 17 for the National Day of Action and you can join online or in person.
Join Faculty First Responders for a presentation and discussion on Academic Freedom & Palestine from the Standpoint of Contingency. 4/17 - 12:30-1:30 FMH b134 or via Zoom.
Watch Party: National Day of Action Teach-In. 4/17 - 2:00-3:00 FMH 101 or register for Zoom link here.
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Join Faculty First Responders for a presentation and discussion on Academic Freedom & Palestine from the Standpoint of Contingency.
As a US-funded, Israeli genocide is underway in Gaza, the imperative to speak truth to power in the classroom and on campus has never been more urgent. Yet, across university campuses and here at PSU, breaking the silence on injustice in Palestine and calling for an end to violence against Palestinians has often resulted in repression and retaliation–long before the genocidal war that began after October 7, 2023. How do we, academic workers at PSU, fulfill our commitment to social justice and antiracism in this climate? How are students and contingent academic workers without job security uniquely impacted when speaking truth to power? And what are proactive measures you can take to exercise your academic freedom without reprisal?
Faculty First Responders joins the PSU community to present and facilitate a conversation on academic freedom, right-wing attacks on faculty and student organizing, and how we organize to protect ourselves and respond to these threats. The experience of contingent academic workers–adjunct faculty, graduate workers and students–will be centered. “Job security is necessary to the freedom to teach and learn,” as stated in the National Day of Action’s The Future We Stand For. This means that in order to educate about and advocate for justice in Palestine and beyond we must also struggle against gig work in higher education. Co-sponsored by PSUFA and PSU Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine
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Watch Party: National Day of Action Teach-In
Faculty, students, and campus workers discuss the future we stand for and the organizing work that will get us there. Join your PSU colleagues to watch the Teach-In live streamed.
Please be sure to REGISTER for the National Teach-In taking place this Wednesday 4/17 at 5 p.m. EDT. You can register at the Day of Action website.
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Teach-In Speakers:
Jason Wozniak is an organizer with Debt Collective. He coordinates Debt Collective's Jubilee School and works on a variety of debt abolition projects with Debt Collective's Pennsylvania branch.
Isaac Kamola is an associate professor of political science at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. He is author of Free Speech and Koch Money: Manufacturing a Campus Culture War (with Ralph Wilson, 2021) and Making the World Global: US Universities and the Production of the Global Imaginary (2019), along with dozens of journal articles and book chapters. He is currently the director of the Mellon-funded Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
Erica Thomas is an adjunct professor in University Studies at Portland State University and Chair of the Political Action Committee for the PSUFA.
Rana Jaleel is Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality, & Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis and Chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
Moderator Irene Mulvey is President of AAUP National.