Rachel Brustein
Editor-in-Chief
During the last two weeks, students across campus have written and signed a petition to show support for the contingent faculty who are unionizing. Samuel Kessler ’16, a member of the Radical Leftist Club spearheaded the petition. Zachary Hill ’16 finalized it on the week of October 13th along with other members of the Radical Leftist Club, and a professor who is on the organizing committee. Kessler explained, “we felt a need to really clearly declare that unionization is in line with Goucher’s principles.”
Since then, there has been both online and paper versions for students to sign. Radical Leftist Club members have been out on Van Meter with hard copies both this week and last reaching out to students and gaining support. As of Tuesday, October 21 the online petition had between 300-400 signatures.
The petition acknowledges that “a union is a worthy avenue to ensure that Goucher’s non-tenure track professors have an equitable voice within the structure of their employment,” and requests for “the Goucher College Administration to remain neutral during the process towards the unionization of Goucher’s non-tenure track faculty.”
Through the petition, Madeleine Scott ’16, explained, students are “showing that we’re there for [the faculty]…and showing the administration that we care about this.” Hill added, that among the petition’s many purposes, one is “to include information about the unionization of the faculty,” so that the entire student body knows this is happening. Unionizing enables the non-tenure track faculty to have a fair discussion without the pressure from the administration.
An online version of the petition can be found and signed at change.org.
There has been talk of student representatives from the Radical Leftist Club, along with a union organizer, hand-delivering the petition to President Bowen by Thursday, October 23.
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