Photo by Tim Jarkow for The Lafayette

Faculty members Nandini Sikand, Jeremy Zallen, Mikael Awake and Drew Swedberg began initial conversations on organizing an AAUP chapter over the summer.

Four Lafayette College faculty members are rebuilding a campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP. If established, members will join over 500 other higher education institutions in an effort to forward issues of academic freedom and shared governance.

The re-establishment of the chapter — which has been inactive for over a decade — has been spearheaded by film and media studies professor Nandini Sikand, history professor Jeremy Zallen, English professor Mikael Awake and film and media studies visiting instructor Drew Swedberg.

“The most important thing was to actually create a body that would have some momentum, that would represent faculty, that would represent all the workers in the college that are part of education,” Zallen said.

There are currently roughly 80 members of the national chapter at Lafayette College, according to Sikand and Zallen. In an email, Sikand wrote that the chapter hopes to have its establishment formed by the end of the academic year after an election of leadership positions, which occurred on Thursday.

Zallen, Swedberg and Sikand drew on broader concerns regarding academic freedom, citing the increase in “repression” and “backlash” of pro-Palestinian teaching in the classroom and the threat to funding and accreditation of higher education institutions under President Donald Trump’s administration.

They emphasized that these issues have persisted in higher education long before this year.

“No one’s going to save us except ourselves,” Zallen said.

The organizers also cited the alleged limited faculty voice in creating protections around firing and hiring alongside college administrators and the Board of Trustees.

“True partnership would look like not just mutual trust, but also like mutual power,” Swedberg said.

College President Nicole Hurd and Provost Laura McGrane did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

While some AAUP chapters, known as “union chapters,” do have collective bargaining, Lafayette’s will be an “advocacy chapter” without the ability to negotiate contracts and salaries. The organizers also said they believe that establishing a Lafayette chapter will inspire other nearby colleges and peer institutions to organize their own chapters.

“A lot of it has to do with courage, of being like, ‘Okay, I’m seeing my colleagues do this at my peer institution,’” Swedberg said.

Seventeen of Lafayette’s chosen 24 peer institutions currently have active chapters, according to a list provided on the AAUP’s website.

Of the six higher education institutions that comprise the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges, Muhlenberg College is currently the only member with an active chapter.

Swedberg and Zallen said that a primary motivation for establishing a chapter was Muhlenberg’s controversial dismissal of Maura Finkelstein, a tenured professor and department chair who was placed on paid administrative leave in January 2024 after a college investigation into an alleged violation of its nondiscrimination policy.

“We should not be waiting for that type of crisis to reach our college before we’re organizing,” said Swedberg, a former adjunct instructor and graduate of Muhlenberg.

Eight months after Finkelstein’s dismissal, Muhlenberg faculty members voted in October to reactivate their AAUP chapter, dormant since the 1990s, according to Sharon Albert, an executive committee member of Muhlenberg’s chapter.

Zallen said that another benefit of establishing an advocacy chapter would be having an organized space for not only tenure and tenure-track faculty, but also visiting instructors, technicians and librarians.

Courtney Dalton, a research and instruction librarian, said she is excited to join the AAUP chapter and start tackling issues relating to higher education. She specifically referenced the recent federal targets of international students, faculty and staff.

Anthropology and Sociology department chair Caroline Lee said she joined the AAUP after attending an organizing meeting in February.

“I hope it’s really diverse, and that there are people with different viewpoints on what we should do,” she said.

Math professor Justin Corvino and Government & Law professor John Kincaid wrote in separate emails that they do not plan to join the AAUP.

Kincaid said that an AAUP chapter will have “symbolic value,” but that he is unlikely to join due to the AAUP not having a “strong track record of advancing academic freedom and shared governance.”

Corvino said that it would not be “unreasonable” for him to join the chapter in the future, but that he presently feels able to work well with the administration.

The Lafayette was unable to receive the AAUP’s election results in time for print publication.