How to Join Wesleyan-AAUP
It’s easy, just join the national organization and select Wesleyan as your institution to join our chapter. Note that we don’t receive notice when you join, so please fill out our members contact form to let us know you’ve joined! This will also enable us to add you to our contact list so you can receive invitations to chapter meetings and updates on the chapter’s actions, and grant you access to our shared resources (such as the chapter Google Drive and Slack).
Eligibility
Membership in our chapter is open to all current members of the faculty, including professors of the practice, tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty, visiting professors, adjunct professors, and librarians. Retired members of the faculty and graduate students of the University are also invited to join. Higher education administrators are not eligible for active membership in the AAUP and may not attend members-only meetings of the Wesleyan AAUP chapter.
Dues
Annual membership dues for the AAUP national organization are sliding scale based on self-reported income, and range from $68 ($5.66 monthly) to $301 ($25.08 monthly). We encourage you to pay what you can. All dues go entirely to the national office; Wesleyan AAUP does not currently collect chapter dues. We do, however, ask our members to support their chapter with a yearly voluntary contribution of $10/20/40 to help us cover chapter operating costs (website, printing, snacks for in-person meetings, etc.) and to subsidize membership in the national organization for anyone in need of financial support. Please donate here.
Why Join?
Across the country, academic freedom and economic security (including but not limited to tenure protections) are under attack. We have seen an erosion of shared governance in favor of unilateral administrative decision-making alongside the increasing corporatization of the university. Inequities in compensation, contracts, working conditions, and workload divide faculty and exacerbate racial and gender inequality. We are confronting challenges that no single faculty member can address effectively. Only as a coordinated, equal, and democratic body of teachers and scholars can we ensure that all Wesleyan faculty can pursue their teaching and scholarship under the protections of academic freedom and economic security.
Joining the Wesleyan University Chapter of the AAUP gives you access to our working groups, shared resources and data, and connection with colleagues across ranks and across the university. If you are a faculty member, AAUP is already working for you. Your membership reinforces faculty governance, academic freedom, and solidarity with other university workers at Wesleyan and across the country.
As of August 1, 2022 AAUP is affiliated with the AFT/AFL-CIO. As a member of the AAUP you are also a member of the American Federation of Teachers.
Other benefits of AAUP membership include a variety of discounts and programs, access to the expertise of AAUP staff, members, and leaders, and access to research, publications, toolkits, and webinars on defending academic freedom, ensuring economic security, and advancing faculty governance for all faculty. AAUP membership also comes with a subscription to Academe magazine.
Additional AFT benefits can be found here.