National Center Events

52nd National Center Annual Conference: Call for Proposals

The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Hunter College, City University of New York invites proposals for balanced and diverse labor-management panels and interactive workshops for our 52nd annual conference that will be taking place on March 23-25, 2025 in New York City. The theme of the 52nd annual conference will be New Developments and Training in Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions. Click here for the Call for Proposals or see the details below.

We welcome proposals for diverse panels or workshops that include both labor and administrator representatives to discuss subjects relevant to higher education and the professions including unionization, collective bargaining, and labor relations. We strongly encourage proposals that include newer scholars, administrators, and labor representatives. A list of suggested panel topics are listed below.

We also encourage conference proposals from authors of recently published books relevant to the theme of the conference.

Those interested in proposing a panel or workshop should upload an abstract by August 30, 2024 to 2025 Conference Abstract Dropbox that includes a title and description along with a list of invited participants including their title, affiliation, and contact information. The abstract should also describe how the proposed panel or workshop will include a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

Questions concerning the call for proposals should be emailed to 2025 National Center Annual Conference.

Suggested Conference Panel or Workshop Topics

Below is a list of suggested topics for panels or interactive workshops:

•    Negotiating about Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property

•    Bargaining System-Wide and Wall-to-Wall Contracts: Issues and Challenges

•    Negotiating and Arbitrating over Tenure Rights and Procedures

•    Recent Successful First Contract Negotiations for Higher Ed Bargaining Units

•    Early Career Scientists: Distinct Unionization and Bargaining Issues

•    Similarities and Differences between Negotiation Issues Involving Interns and Residents, Post-Doctora Scholars, and GSEs

•    Social Justice Issues as Negotiable Subjects in the Public and Private Sectors

•    Title IX: Compliance and Training for Administrators and Union Representatives

•    The Scope of Protected Conduct for Political, Social, and International Advocacy

•    Mindfulness for Stressful Times in Higher Education and the Professions

•    The Ins and Outs of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

•    Introduction to the Legal Process that Underlies Labor Relations

•    Best Practices in Contract Implementation, Administration, and Enforcement

•    Labor-Management Committees: Purposes, Structures, and Best Practices

•    Practical Skills in Handling Weingarten Rights and Disciplinary Interrogations

•    Disciplinary Arbitration: Best Practices in Preparing and Presenting

•    Information Demands and Responses in Negotiations and Grievance Processing

•    Mediation/Arbitration and Triage as Means for Avoiding Grievance Backlogs

•    Ombudsperson Programs in Higher Ed for Employee Interpersonal Conflict

•    Challenges in Enforcing Prohibitions against Workplace Violence and Bullying

•    Bargaining Issues for Classified, Clerical, and Other Campus Staff

•    Community College Job Training Partnerships with Industry

•    Undergraduate Student Collective Bargaining: Issues, Practices and Experience

•    Student Athletes: Update on Employee Status and Its Implications

•    Unique Bargaining Issues at Museums and other Cultural Institutions

•    Privatization of Public Services in Higher Education and the Professions

•    Mergers and Closures of Colleges: Bargaining and Other Issues

Become a Conference Sponsor or Program Advertiser to Celebrate Our 52nd Annual Conference and Support Our Research

To help celebrate the National Center’s 52nd annual conference, we encourage higher education institutions, unions, law firms, and companies to become a sponsor of our 2025 annual conference. For sponsorship information, click here.

Through a conference sponsorship you will demonstrate support for the National Center’s continuing labor-management mission and research agenda.

Another important way to celebrate the National Center’s 52nd annual conference and demonstrate support for our mission and research is for your institution, union, law firm, organization or company to place an advertisement in the conference program. For more information on ad placement, click here.

Please email us with any questions at: msavares@hunter.cuny.edu.

Thank You for a Successful 51st Annual National Conference

We thank all of the speakers, moderators, and conference attendees for a successful 51st Annual Conference of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions on March 17-19, 2024.

We are grateful to Tom Kochan for his thoughtful and informative keynote address, which included an analysis of the growing unionization efforts by graduate and undergraduate student employees.

The theme of this year's annual conference was New Crossroads in Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations in Higher Education and the Professions. The program was designed to touch upon issues that impact everyone who works in higher education.

The success of the conference would not have been possible without the support and assistance of Hunter College Interim President Kirschner, our Board of Advisors, along with the staff of Roosevelt House, the CUNY Graduate Center, and conference staff and volunteers.

Finally, we thank the sponsors of our 51st annual conference along with the unions, businesses, institutions and law firms that purchased advertisements in our conference program. To view the annual conference program, click here.

Below are pictures of panels, presenters, staff, and volunteers from the annual conference along with videos of select panels. We thank Alexandra Lacey of Persuasion Pictures for recording and producing the videos.


Higher Education Leadership Panel with (l-r) Rick Schaffer, former CUNY General Counsel, Ann Kirschner, Hunter College Interim President, Daniel Greenstein, PASSHE Chancellor, Catharine Bond Hill, Ithaka S+R, Managing Director.	Keynote Speaker: Thomas A. Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management.	Navigating Generative AI in Higher Education Panel with (l-r) Kyle Arnone, AFT Collective Bargaining Director, Amanda Blair, Fisher & Philips LLP, and Tony Picciano, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center.

Contingent Faculty Job Security Facilitated Session with (l-r) Theodore Curry, Michigan State University Professor Emeritus, School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, Mia McIver, UCLA Lecturer; UC-AFT Local 1474 former President and Benjamin Superfine, University of Illinois Chicago Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Relations.	Labor-Management Cooperation in Reversing Contingency Panel with (l-r) Melissa Sortman, Michigan State University Director of Faculty and Academic Staff Affairs, Heather Pierce, Rutgers University Adjunct Faculty Member, Carla Katz, Rutgers University, NTT Faculty Member and Kim O'Halloran, Rutgers University VP of Academic Planning Administration.	Collective Bargaining and Library Personnel in Higher Education Panel with (l-r) Ahsan Ali, Tufts University Labor Relations Director, Kelly McElroy, United Academics of Oregon State, AAUP/AFT Local 9609, Meredith Kahn, LEO AFT-MI 6244, Campus Chair, (GLAM), Adriene Lim, University of Maryland - College Park Dean of Libraries and Consuella Askew, Rutgers University, VP for University Libraries.

Graduate Student Representation Election Outcomes Panel with (l-r) Jacob Apkarian, York College Associate Professor, Kathy Collins, Huron Consulting Group, Gary Rhoades, University of Arizona Professor and Nick DiGiovanni, Morgan, Brown & Joy, LLP.	Collective Bargaining and Museums with (l-r) Michael Loconto, Loconto ADR, Trish Jeffers, Guggenheim Museum, Amanda Tobin Ripley, Ohio State Graduate Teaching Associate, Donna Gustafson, Rutgers University, Maida Rosenstein, UAW Local 2110 and Halcyone Schiller, AFSCME DC 47.	Higher Ed Vaccine Mandates in Canada and the US with (l-r) Larry Savage and Alison Braley-Rattai, Brock University.

Trustees’ Perspectives on Collective Bargaining Panel with (l-r) Paul Brown, University of Michigan Board of Regents, Todd Regis, Central Michigan University Trustee, Susan Solomon, City College of San Francisco Trustee and Kenneth Mash, APSCUF President.	Book Discussion: Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom with (l-r) Charles Toombs, CFA President, Ellen Schrecker, Professor Emerita, Yeshiva University, Helena Worthen, labor educator, retired, University of Illinois, and Jennifer Ruth, Portland State University Professor.	Resident and Fellow Unionization: State Medical Schools with (l-r) Sara Slinn, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, David Dashefsky, CIR-SEIU, Wade Baughman, University of Michigan Labor Relations, Michael Kelly, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Cindy Hamra, University of Washington School of Medicine, and Banks Evans, University of Washington Labor Relations.

National Center Volunteers and Staff (l-r) Amy Jeu, Hunter College, Kim Middleton, CUNY Central, Greg and Winnie Johnson, National Center Staff.	National Center Staff (l-r) Michelle Savarese, National Center Administrator and Nancy Hanks, National Center Conference Coordinator.

Select Recordings of Panel Presentations:

Keynote Presentation by Thomas A. Kochan, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management, Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management. With introduction by Adrienne Eaton, Dean, Office of the Dean and Distinguished Professor, Labor Studies and Employment Relations (LSER), Rutgers University.

Panel: Navigating Generative AI in Higher Education: Implications for Collective Bargaining, Pedagogy, and Research with Kyle Arnone, AFT Collective Bargaining Center, Anthony G. Picciano, Professor, Hunter College, School of Education and CUNY Graduate Center, Amanda M. Blair, Associate, Fisher & Phillips LLP, and Rob Weill, AFT Director of Policy, Research and Field Services, Panelist and Moderator.

Book Discussion: Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education: A Labor History with Gwendolyn Alker, Associate Arts Professor, Department of Drama, New York University, Joe T. Berry, Ph.D., City College of San Francisco and University of Illinois (retired), COCAL, HELU, Anne McLeer, Director of Higher Education and Strategic Planning, SEIU Local 500, Gary Rhoades, Professor and Director, Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Arizona, Commentator, and Eric Fure-Slocum, Associate Professor of History (Emeritus), co-editor of Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education, Moderator.

Panel: Best Practices in Collective Negotiations with Pamela Silverblatt, Senior Counsel, Bond, Schoeneck & King PLLC, John Gross, Ingerman Smith LLP, Frederick Floss, Professor, Economics and Finance, and Co-Director, Center for Economic Education, SUNY Buffalo State University, Elizabeth Vignaux, Labor Relations Specialist, NYSUT, and Scott M. Sommer, Commissioner, Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Moderator.

Panel: Best Practices in Arbitration with Homer LaRue, Labor Arbitrator, Mediator, and Professor, Howard University Law School, Marlene Gold, Labor Arbitrator, Mark Gaston Pearce, Labor Arbitrator, Visiting Professor and Executive Director, Workers’ Rights Institute, Georgetown University Law School, and Katie Rosen, Labor Arbitrator. Co-sponsored by the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Book Discussion: The Costs of Completion: Student Success in Community College with Robin G. Isserles, Author, The Costs of Completion: Student Success in Community College, Professor of Sociology, Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, and Grievance Counselor for Full-time Faculty, PSC BMCC Chapter, Christine Mangino, President, Queensborough Community College, CUNY, Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, President, Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, Colena Sesanker, Associate Professor, Philosophy, Gateway Community College, CT, Member of Board of Regents of CSCU, and Jennifer Shanoski, Chemistry, Merritt College, Oakland California, Moderator.

Panel: Trustees’ Perspectives on Collective Bargaining with Susan Solomon, City College of San Francisco Trustee, Todd J. Regis, Central Michigan University Trustee, Paul Brown, University of Michigan Board of Regents, and Kenneth M. Mash, President, APSCUF, Moderator.

Panel: Bargaining Issues For Classified, Clerical, and Other Campus Staff with Sarah Wofford, AFT Vice President, Oregon School Employees Association, Christine O'Connell, President, Union of Rutgers Administrators AFT Local 1766, Rainah Chambliss, Co-President of the Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia, and Andre’ Poplar, Vice Chancellor – Human Resources and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice, Oakland Community College – District, Moderator.

51st Annual National Conference Sponsors