Why FAM Will Strengthen Miami

Dear Miami Colleagues,

Congratulations on finishing your grading and on another impactful year of teaching, research, and serving our students and community!

It’s been a singularly consequential spring for faculty and librarians at Miami. In January, Faculty Alliance of Miami concluded almost two years of 1-on-1 conversations during which we listened to the hopes and concerns of the vast majority of Miami faculty across colleges and campuses and learned that our colleagues overwhelmingly support unionizing. On February 2, FAM launched the public stage of the campaign to unionize, confirming the support of a strong majority of the faculty for FAM’s mission. Soon, FAM organizers will be driving your union authorization cards to the State Employment Relations Board in Columbus.

FAM is pursuing a holistic vision to reinvigorate the teacher-scholar model after years of faculty cuts, increased class sizes and loads, and reduced time for research and teaching preparation. We’ve already seen the power of faculty solidarity, as the administration has pivoted toward faculty concerns in their communications and announced—months ahead of the usual timing—an unprecedented 4% salary increment pool.

As the economist Matthew D. Hendricks recently wrote, "Since at least the late 1960s, education researchers have known that the most important factor influencing student outcomes is teacher quality… To improve student outcomes, colleges and universities need to promote policies that will allow them to attract, hire, and retain the best teachers.” Through FAM, you and your colleagues can ensure that Miami acts in its own long-term best interest.

What FAM will bring to Miami

Stronger shared governance
FAM will not solve all problems at Miami; this is a challenging time in higher education. But through a union, faculty perspectives stand a much better chance of informing and influencing Miami’s future. 

The collective power of a union gives you and your colleagues a firm stake in decision-making. Through the contract and legal grievance processes, faculty can participate in creating equitable outcomes and make sure that the university follows its own policies. Miami’s University Senate is an advisory body whose recommendations the administration is able to ignore. Only 19 out of 91 faculty seats on standing committees are held by elected representatives. And when 95% of faculty voted in favor of adding two non-voting faculty members to the Board of Trustees, it took the Board under three minutes to hear and dispense with the resolution.

True collegiality
Collegiality—the commitment to shared responsibility and care among colleagues—exists when all faculty have a voice and when the needs and perspectives of the least powerful, as well as the most powerful, can be heard. Collegiality is threatened when faculty employment is precarious, when faculty are afraid to speak out, and when decisions that affect faculty working lives and student learning are made in top-down fashion. Because a union contract offers clear guidelines, collaboratively developed through negotiation, there are fewer opportunities for confusion, disagreement, and strife between administration and faculty.

Through FAM, faculty and librarians in all ranks and categories, on all campuses and of all demographics, will be empowered to improve their working lives. Let’s be boldly collegial!
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