Contingent Academic Labor and Professional Associations

Abstract

Panelists on this roundtable who will discuss professional organizations’ past and ongoing work to address contingent faculty concerns represent the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, the Labor and Working-Class History Association, and the American Association of University Professors. Members of the roundtable will engage questions about what professional organizations can and ought to do individually and collectively not only to mitigate contingent workers’ daily challenges but also to confront the steady degradation of academic work in higher education—an acute problem for contingent faculty, but one that affects other faculty and students alike.

Chair: Eric Jon Fure-Slocum, St. Olaf College
Eric Fure-Slocum, a U.S. labor and urban historian, is the author of Contesting the Postwar City: Working-Class and Growth Politics in 1940s Milwaukee (2013), co-editor of Civic Labors: Scholar Activism and Working-Class Studies (2016), and co-editor of Contingent Faculty: A Labor History (in progress). He teaches as a non-tenure-track associate professor at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. Co-founder of the Labor and Working-Class History’s Committee on Contingent Faculty, he serves on LAWCHA’s board and co-chairs the OAH’s Committee on Part-time, Adjunct, and Contingent Employment.

Panelist: Rachel ida Buff, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Rachel Ida Buff is a founding member of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee chapter of the American Association of University Professors. She is also part of the Wisconsin Conference of the AAUP, as well as the Governance Committee of AAUP National. She is faculty editor of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom. A writer and immigration historian, her most recent book is: A is for Asylum Seeker: Words for People on the Move/ A de Asilo: Palabras para Personas en Movimiento (2020).

Panelist: Claire Goldstene, Independent Scholar
Claire Goldstene has taught United States history at the University of Maryland, the University of North Florida, and American University. She has published on contingent faculty issues in Thought and Action, Dissent, Working USA, and Inequality.org, and serves on the board of New Faculty Majority. She also serves on the Labor and Working-Class History Association’s board and chairs LAWCHA’s Committee on Contingent Faculty. She is the author of The Struggle for America’s Promise: Equal Opportunity at the Dawn of Corporate Capital (2014) and co-editor of Contingent Faculty: A Labor History (in progress).

Panelist: Elizabeth Anne Hohl, Fairfield University
Elizabeth Hohl is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of History at Fairfield University. She teaches in the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, the Peace and Justice Studies Program and the Black Studies Program. Elizabeth served as Co-Chair of the Organization of American Historians’ Committee on Part-time, Adjunct, and Contingent Employment. She is also a member of the Scholar’s Committee for the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. Her research focuses on African American women activists during the Jim Crow-Progressive Era.

Panelist: Dorothee Schneider, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dorothee Schneider is a historian of U.S. immigration and labor and was one of the founders of the Non-Tenure Faculty Coalition, Local 4564 AFT/IFT/AAUP. She retired as Teaching Associate Professor from the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2019. Her current project is entitled “A Thousand Conversations: Union Organizing in Higher Education in the 21st Century.” She lives in Philadelphia and is co-chair of the OAH’s Committee on Part-time, Adjunct, and Contingent Employment.

Panelist: Emily Swafford, American Historical Association
Emily Swafford is director of academic and professional affairs at the American Historical Association. She directs the Association’s work related to teaching and learning in history and the professional issues historians face. She is working on a book manuscript on the origins of military family policy in the early Cold War.