2025 Annual Conference

Welcoming Remarks with William A. Herbert, Executive Director, National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Hunter College, CUNY, Manoj Pardasani, Interim Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Hunter College, CUNY, Malini Cadambi-Daniel, Executive Director, Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, AFT Local 2334, Ahsan Ali, Senior Director of Labor Relations, Tufts University, and Jessica Baker, Hunter College student and National Center intern.

Keynote Presentation: Unity in Defense of Higher Education and Collective Bargaining with Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers, Lynn Pasquerella, President, American Association of Colleges and Universities, and Adrienne Lu, Senior Reporter, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Moderator.

Presentation on the 2024 Directory of Faculty Contracts and Bargaining Agents in Higher Education with Jacob Apkarian, Associate Professor, Sociology, York College, CUNY, Joseph van der Naald, PhD Candidate in Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY, Susan Kelly, President, Microsearch Corporation, Mary Taber, Director of Research, UUP, Commentator, Dana Fleming, Associate General Counsel, Tufts University, Commentator, and Malini Cadambi-Daniel, Executive Director, Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, AFT Local 2334, Moderator.

Book Discussion: Organizing Professionals: Academic Employees Negotiating a New Academy (Rutgers University Press, 2025) with author Gary Rhoades, Professor and Director, Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Arizona, Richard Gomes, Staff Representative, AFT New Jersey, Jennie Shanker, Staff Representative, AFT New Jersey, Laura Murphy, Dutchess Community College, Dan Echikson, Organizer, ACT-UAW Local 7902, and Ryan Quinn, Reporter, Inside Higher Ed, Moderator.

Panel: Current Immigration Issues in Higher Education with Miriam Feldblum, co-founder and Executive Director, Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, Cianna Freeman-Tolbert, Whiteman Osterman & Hanna LLP, and Channing Cooper, Deputy Director, AFT Legal Department, Panelist and Moderator.

Research Panel: Work Stoppage Across the Educational Continuum: K-12 to Higher Education with Jacob Apkarian, Associate Professor, Sociology, York College, CUNY and National Center Affiliated Researcher, Melissa Arnold Lyon, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY, Daniel Iskhakov, National Center Graduate Research Fellow, and Rhiannon M. Maton, Associate Professor, Foundations and Social Advocacy, SUNY Cortland and National Center Visiting Scholar, Panelist and Moderator.

Panel: Artificial Intelligence: Changing the Bargaining Landscape with Jeffrey M. Hirsch, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Geneva Yeargan Rand Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law, Alec Thomson, President, National Council for Higher Education, NEA, Nicholas L. Collins, ArentFox Schiff LLP, and Arthur Pearlstein, Arbitrator and Mediator, Moderator.

Panel: Administrator Responses to Campus Protest: Lessons from History with Ellen Schrecker, Professor of History (retired), Yeshiva University, member Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, AAUP, Paul Ortiz, Professor of Labor History, Cornell ILR, Jelani Favors, Author of Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism, Henry E. Frye Distinguished Professor, Department of History and Political Science and Director, Center of Excellence for Social Justice, North Carolina A&T State University, and Dale Kapla, Senior Associate Provost, Northern Michigan University, Moderator.