Become a Friend of the JMU Chapter

Your concerns are our concerns. Your voice gets amplified with our voices. We are here to educate faculty on their rights but also to listen to their concerns and act on it. We can work stronger together and ensure the support of academic freedom, shared governance (active involvement of faculty in decision-making processes and priority-setting), transparency, work load, job security… and many other rights we have as faculty. All faculty of all ranks are invited to join.

Our chapter can collaborate with an experienced national staff to solve local problems. The various departments in the AAUP’s national office offer experienced assistance to individuals, chapters, and state conferences—membership; academic freedom, tenure, and governance; organizing and services; communications; finance; government relations; law; and research. A century of knowledge and experience is available with a telephone call or an e-mail. An immense array of resources is available on the AAUP’s website.

Our chapter benefits from national representation. The national office represents faculty interests at a national level. We monitor legislative proposals, submit amicus briefs to the courts, conduct research on higher education trends, track salary patterns in an annual report, and issue strong statements on critical issues.

Joining your local chapter is confidential. Joining your chapter may include fees. To be added to our list, send us an email at aaup.jmu@gmail.com with your preferred email (non-jmu).

Making a donation: If you are not a member of Academia but still want to support our work, you may make a donation using Paypal. Any contribution helps! We are using funds towards maintaining the website, printing fliers, organizing social events, etc….Contact us for more details: aaup.jmu@gmail.com

Become a Member of the National AAUP

In addition to our JMU Chapter, you can also join the AAUP, for which there are dues that are scaled to your pay rate.

Why join the National AAUP as well?

By becoming a member of AAUP, you are supporting academic freedom, tenure, shared governance, and many other rights now enjoyed at James Madison University. These practices must be defended not just at JMU, but nationwide. AAUP works on the principle of pooled strength:

The national AAUP has a members-only resources on its website. When you become a paid member, you’ll get a password.

Members-only resources include:

• Webinars on topics including strengthening faculty handbooks, good-faith bargaining, working with the media, and other topics of interest to advocacy and union AAUP chapters. Participation in the webinars is generally limited to AAUP members and field staff, and you can now find recordings and materials from the webinars on the web.
• Information on our One Faculty campaign, which is designed to help collective bargaining and advocacy chapters or state conferences to make concrete gains in the areas of job security, compensation, and/or governance inclusion for faculty with contingent appointments. It explains why a united faculty is a strong faculty and includes specific guidelines for bargaining key contract issues.
• A new Organizing Toolkit containing proven AAUP organizing practices and materials to help both new and established chapters organize to win. The toolkit provides information about how contingent and tenure-track faculty can build and strengthen membership. It also explains how to organize issue campaigns in advocacy chapters and contract campaigns in bargaining chapters.
• Additions to our Local Toolkit, including guidance on building chapter websites.
• Guidebooks on Navigating Faculty Appointments, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and Faculty Handbooks as Enforceable Contracts.

Contact: Gwendolyn Bradley, Director of External Relations: gbradley@aaup.org