An electronic sign welcomes people to the Howard University campus in Washington. Faculty members said they plan to protest unfair working conditions for its tenured faculty on campus.
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
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Jacquelyn Martin / AP
An electronic sign welcomes people to the Howard University campus in Washington. Faculty members said they plan to protest unfair working conditions for its tenured faculty on campus.
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
Hundreds of faculty members at Howard University in Washington, DC, say they are threatening to strike next week over complaints about unfair working conditions.
In one Protest held on campus Fourth, a number of faculty leaders, students and alumni rallied to support the school’s faculty as they debated the low wages of full-time and non-teachable faculty. tenured and adjunct professors.
Some faculty members said that if no agreement was reached with the university by Friday, they would go on strike starting next week.
Currently, there are 150 full-time, non-tenure faculty members and more than 200 adjunct professors on Howard’s campus – all represented by Service Staff International Union (SEIU) Local 500shared these employment figures.
“The university leadership has made it clear that a better teaching environment and a better learning environment are not important to them,” Contingent Department leader and alumnus Howard Cyrus Hampton, said according to SEIU.
Hampton teaches full-time in the university’s English department.
“They left us with no choice but to go on strike because they continued to negotiate in poor faith,” added Hampton.
According to SEIU, Howard’s faculty is teaching “about 1,000 courses” this semester alone on campus. The union said that negotiations between faculty members and campus management have been going on for the past three years.
“Students are important to students’ learning, their needs are justified, they are not alone because students, alumni and longtime faculty will stand by them, and they will win,” said Marcus Alfred, associate professor of physics and chairman of Howard’s Department Senate. Executive Council, told SEIU.
NPR has reached out to Howard University to request comment.
In a statement emailed to NPR, the university said it “remains diligent” in its commitments to union representatives and university officials to reach a fruitful agreement.
“Our commitment to a peaceful bargaining process has not changed and we will continue to advance good faith efforts to reach an agreement with the union and address the needs of adjunct faculty. and does not track tenure and University,” the university said in declare.
“We have made a proposal to raise wages for union trainers and continue to negotiate in good faith,” the statement added. “Howard faculty members play an important role in our community. We will continue to work alongside our faculty to ensure their success and the success of Howard’s students.”
News of the threatening faculty strike came after the university made headlines early this past fall after students protested for more than a month about the poor housing conditions of the school.
More than 150 students in the same group Direct motion, An organization that advocates for educational reform and academic advancement, protested at the school’s Blackburn University Center on October 12, 2021.
Students slept in tents outside Blackburn University Center last October, protesting what they said were poor housing conditions and a lack of student representation on the Board of Trustees.
In November, an agreement between student and university protesters achieved. The specifics of negotiations between students and administrators were not immediately available.
In 2018, students take the lead nine-day occupation of the campus management building, resulting in an agreement between staff and students regarding a number of campus changes.
Some of the changes include revising the school’s sexual assault policy, reviewing policies that allow campus police to carry weapons, and establishing on-campus food banks for students.
