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National Center Events
Register Now (Early Bird Special) for the National Center's 51st Annual Conference: New York City, March 17-19, 2024
The National Center's 51st annual national conference will take place on March 17-19, 2024 in New York City. The conference will be held at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College and at the CUNY Graduate Center. Keynote Presentation: Thomas A. Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management. The Keynote Speaker will be introduced by: Adrienne Eaton, Dean, Office of the Dean and Distinguished Professor, Labor Studies and Employment Relations (LSER), Rutgers University. Panel: Higher Education Leadership in Challenging Times: The Year Ahead with Ann Kirschner, Interim President, Hunter College, CUNY, Daniel Greenstein, Chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, Catherine Bond Hill, Managing Director, Ithaka S+R, and former President, Vassar College, and Frederick P. Schaffer, former General Counsel, CUNY, Moderator. |
51st Annual National Conference Sponsors
Become a Conference Sponsor or Program Advertiser to Celebrate Our 51st Annual Conference and Support Our Research
To help celebrate the National Center’s 51st annual conference, we encourage higher education institutions, unions, law firms, and companies to become a sponsor of our 2024 annual conference. Through a conference sponsorship you will demonstrate support for the National Center’s continuing labor-management mission and research agenda. To access the sponsorship rate sheet click here. Another important way to celebrate the National Center’s 51st annual conference and demonstrate support for our mission and research is for your institution, union, law firm, organization or company to place an advertisement in the conference program. To access the ad order form, click here. Please email us with any questions at: msavares@hunter.cuny.edu; nat_ctr@hunter.cuny.edu |
National Center Book Corner: A Title that Inspired a 2024 Panel
Description: In the United States today, almost three-quarters of those teaching in colleges and universities are employed as contingent faculty. These precarious academic workers—ranging from course-by-course adjuncts to long-term contingent faculty to graduate student workers—share the worries and uncertainties that plague other workers in today’s gig economy, including little to no job security, few if any health care benefits, insufficient retirement savings, and diminished professional status. Contingent faculty have responded to precarity with a range of actions—raising their voices to influence departmental and campus practices, steering professional organizations to recognize their plight, and organizing faculty unions to bargain collectively. This volume analyzes the use of collective bargaining as a means of workplace democracy and the public good of higher education.
Contributors: Gwendolyn Alker, Diane Angell, Joe Berry, Sue Doe, Eric Fure-Slocum, Claire Goldstene, Trevor Griffey, Erin Hatton, William A. Herbert, Elizabeth Hohl, Miguel Juárez, Aimee Loiselle, Maria Maisto, Anne McLeer, Steven Parfitt, Jiyoon Park, Claire Raymond, Gary Rhoades, Jeff Schuhrke, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Steven Shulman, Joseph van der Naald, Anne Wiegard, Naomi R Williams, and Helena Worthen.
The 2024 panel is entitled, Book Discussion: Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education: A Labor History. The panelists will be Gwendolyn Alker, Associate Arts Professor, Department of Drama, New York University, Joe T. Berry, Ph.D., City College of San Francisco and University of Illinois (retired), COCAL, HELU, Anne McLeer, Director of Higher Education and Strategic Planning, SEIU Local 500, Joseph van der Naald, PhD Candidate in Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY, and Eric Fure-Slocum, Associate Professor of History (Emeritus), co-editor of Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education, Moderator.
The book is available through the University of Illinois Press. Use Promo Code F23UIP for 30% discount.
Regional Higher Education Collective Bargaining Workshop at the University of Illinois-Chicago: A Major Success
On September 14 and 15, 2023, the National Center held a regional higher education collective bargaining workshop at the University of Illinois-Chicago. The regional conference was co-sponsored by the University of Illinois System, and the University of Illinois School of Labor & Employment Relations’ Labor Education Program. The sold-out workshop included over 100 attendees and speakers from Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and California. This was the third regional workshop organized by the National Center since 2013, with the last two being held in California. It is part our effort to revive the tradition of holding regional programming similar to the events the National Center sponsored in earlier decades. |
The workshop program at the University of Illinois-Chicago included facilitated sessions on specific collective bargaining issues as well as traditional panel discussions on collective bargaining, community colleges, academic freedom and free speech rights on campus, affirmative action and discrimination, best practices in arbitration, and legal obligations under public sector collective bargaining laws and the National Labor Relations Act. The conference keynote speaker was Sameer Gadkaree, President, The Institute of College Access and Success. Click here for the workshop website and here for the conference materials. |
Best Practices in Collective Bargaining Panel with (l-r) Diana Valera, President CFA/IFT, Columbia College, Mark Bennett, Laner Muchin, Marcia Mackey, Michigan Education Association (moderator), Melissa Sortman, Assistant Provost and Director, Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs, Michigan State University, and Elizabeth Towell, SEIU Local 73 |
Best Practices in Collective Bargaining Panel with (l-r) Stephen Yokich, Bloch, Bennett, Cervone, Auerbach & Yokich, LLP, Robb Craddock, Labor and Employee Relations Executive Director, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Mike Newman, Deputy Director, AFSCME Council 31, Richard W. Fanning, Jr, Clark Hill, PLC, and Terry Curry, former Associate Provost and Associate Vice President, Michigan State University (moderator) | Collective Bargaining, Discrimation, Affirmative Action & Title IX Panel with (l-r) Ricky Baldwin, Assistant Director, State Division, SEIU Local 73, Risa Lieberwitz, Professor of Labor and Employment, Cornell ILR and AAUP General Counsel, Augustus Wood, Assistant Professor, School of Labor & Employment Relations, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Julie Miceli, Husch Blackwell, and Karen Stubaus, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Rutgers University and National Center Affiliated Researcher (moderator) |
Legal Obligations under Public Sector Statutes and NLRA Panel with (l-r) Richard W. Fanning, Jr., Clark Hill, PLC, Ellen Strizak, General Counsel, Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, Angie Cowan Hamada, National Labor Relations Board Region 13 Director, and Alice Johnson, General Counsel Cook College Teachers Union (moderator) |
Community Colleges: Distinct Bargaining Issues and Challenges Panel with (l-r) Robert Boonin, Dykema, PLLC, Tony Johnston, Cook County Teachers Union, Local 1600 President, Andre' L. Poplar, Vice Chancellor for Human Resources and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Oakland Community College, Shannon Altson, Director of Business, Legal & Human Resources, Michigan Edcuation Association, and Joshua Walker, Dean of Business and Institutional Effectiveness, John Wood Community College (moderator) |
10 Best Practice Tips from Experienced Labor Arbitrators with (l-r) Meeta Bass, Arbitrator, Cary Morgen, Arbitrator, and Betty Widgeon, Arbitrator, (moderator and panelist) |