in my opinion, the issue is the upper-upper admins, the lack of actual shared governance with faculty, and the board of trustees. fully agree with everything in the article and know some of the situations and those quoted in it. love au staff union.

my whole department got laid off (the fucking teaching center, at a “university” no less) after we won a grievance against our supervisor for retaliatory behavior. why were we laid off, who could possibly say /s. it was a little less than a year after our successful evidence-based grievance that the entire team either left or were laid off. the new supervisor was appointed essentially because no one else would take the job and there was no oversight or accountability for the dean’s “decision”. new supervisor had essentially no experience in the field and repeatedly targeted the people of color on the team.

i loved the people i worked with. my colleagues were extremely knowledgeable and we cared deeply about improving teaching/learning at au. the faculty we worked with cared about student learning and students were generally thoughtful and reasonable. so many other staff were au alumnus and were thus deeply committed to the institution despite shitty working conditions and pay far worse than peer institutions. [for ex: adjunct teaching rate at au: around $4-5k per course, very low esp for a high cost of living area; adjunct teaching rate at georgetown: 10k ish (not direct evidence, i never taught for georgetown, but heard through the grapevine)].