NYU Chapter
American Association of University Professors
NYU-AAUP is an association of faculty across NYU schools and campuses. We’re focused on defending academic freedom, encouraging participation in university governance, and advancing the interests of NYU faculty, students, and staff.
NYU-AAUP is proud to work in solidarity with NYU campus unions and organizations, including:
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NYU-AAUP History
NYU’s AAUP chapter dates to the 1950s, a time when it was considered routine for academics to join the Association when they took their first job. On the back of a wave of faculty unionization in the 1970s, the AAUP and, separately, the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) both launched organizing drives at NYU. The vote to form a union was split, and the campaign at NYU failed. Shortly afterwards, the Yeshiva ruling (1980) by the Supreme Court designated private university faculty part of management, thus putting an end to faculty organizing at private universities. The NYU chapter went dormant.
The NYU-AAUP chapter was revived in 2001 after John Sexton was appointed by the Board of Trustees as NYU’s president without any faculty input. Since then, it has become one of the strongest AAUP advocacy chapters at a private university in the United States. It has supported the unionization efforts of graduate employees (GSOC-UAW), adjunct faculty (ACT-UAW), and contract faculty (CFU-AUW), in addition to the bargaining efforts of clerical, administrative and technical staff (UCATS). The NYU chapter played a central role in the faculty Votes of No Confidence in the administration of John Sexton, and has been a diligent defender of academic freedom and faculty/graduate student rights across NYU’s New York campuses and the Global Network University.
About NYU-AAUP
The NYU-AAUP is an advocacy chapter linked to the national Association of American University Professors, the only cross-disciplinary national organization for university faculty that advances and defends values for the profession. NYU’s chapter is based at the University’s New York City campus, although it advocates for all NYU-employed faculty and graduate students across the global network.
As an advocacy chapter (not a collective bargaining chapter), our primary goals are:
- to encourage faculty participation in governance at New York University, particularly in face of the assault against shared governance in recent years;
- to defend academic freedom at NYU and throughout academia, including in our most recent new era of third-party corporate mediated instruction, research, and meeting;
- and to protect and advance the professional interests of all faculty and researchers in colleges, universities, and professional schools, especially as austerity and restructuring increasingly threatens the livelihoods of NYU’s faculty and researchers.
We are committed to anti-racism efforts within the university and prioritizing the reduction of institutional inequalities for students, staff and faculty of color, along with LGBTQ, disabled community members.
To contact NYU-AAUP, please email us at aaup.nyu@gmail.com.
Resources
National AAUP Resources
- National AAUP Website
- New York State AAUP Conference Website
- AAUP Letter to NYU President Raises Concerns about Zoom Censorship
- AAUP Adds University of Akron to COVID-19 Governance Investigation
- Vote, Volunteer, Organize
- AAUP Launches a COVID-19 Governance Investigation
- Statement on President Trump’s Attack on Critical Race Theory
NYU Solidarity Resources
Coming Soon…
NYU-AAUP Twitter
Land Acknowledgement
The NYU Chapter of the AAUP acknowledges that New York University is located on Lenapehoking, ancestral homelands of the Lenape people. We recognise the continued significance of these lands for Lenape nations past and present, we pay our respects to the ancestors as well as to past, present and emerging Lenape leaders. We also recognize that New York City has the largest urban Indigenous population in the United States. Addressing structural Indigenous exclusion and erasure is critically important and the NYU-AAUP chapter is committed to actively working to overcome the ongoing effects and realities of settler-colonialism within NYU.
Join Us!
AAUP is the only national organization dedicated to safeguarding the rights of higher education professionals. If you teach and do research at NYU you are part of an essential workforce. Yet opportunities for wide-ranging workplace interaction with your peers across the NYU community are slim. As a workforce we are divided by schools, by deans, and by rank. Communications are centralized. There is no platform for free conversation about the conditions under which we do our jobs. Yet threats to the tenure system and academic freedom are real and ongoing. NYU’s AAUP chapter provides a space for free, unmonitored speech about these and other issues. We challenge top-down policies formulated by the administration, promote genuine shared faculty governance, and when necessary, serve as a resource for coordinated action.
Join AAUP and be part of something bigger: a democratic and grassroots movement among instructors at all levels and in all schools to reform higher education and strengthen faculty governance while holding NYU’s administration to account.
Eligibility & Dues
NYU chapter membership is open to all current and retired faculty—regardless of rank or type of appointment—and to current graduate students, across the University and its global academic network. Chapter membership is free of charge. However, if you can afford it, please join the AAUP’s national organization by paying annual dues, to help support the indispensable work of AAUP’s dedicated leaders and staff.