Greetings AAUP-CSU Members and Supporters,
With another academic year underway, AAUP-CSU is here to advocate for all academic workers at CSU. Keep reading for a letter from our president and executive committee outlining our 2026-27 priorities and learn how you can get involved!
[Take Action] [Stay Informed] [Get Support] [Join AAUP-CSU]
Take Action
AAUP-CSU 2026-27 Goals
Happy fall semester to everyone whose work powers Colorado State University. As usual, CSU’s administration is celebrating our shared achievements, especially our progress on a series of construction projects and our first season competing in the Pac-12 athletic conference. These achievements are real, but they also fall short of what we could do with the resources we have. Our chapter of the AAUP is committed to improving the lives of faculty, instructors, researchers, and academic professionals at CSU. We are convinced that democratizing CSU and improving pay and benefits, would advance not just our interests, but the interests of our students and the people of Colorado.
Working at CSU is frustrating because important decisions are made with little or no input from workers. CSU’s administration gives lip service to “shared governance,” but it runs this University from the top down. Last year, CSU’s administration announced it would eliminate 178 full-time equivalent positions just two days before laying off scores of longtime colleagues. This year, we have been told to expect more cuts, without any indication of whose jobs are on the line. Although we are supposedly in our second “parallel year” of CSU’s new budget model, the administration has still not shared its formulas for determining College budgets. Increasing transparency and accountability at CSU will benefit faculty, staff, and students.
Living in Fort Collins is also increasingly unaffordable for CSU workers, because many do not earn a living wage and our raises do not keep pace with the cost of living. The average “merit” raise for faculty and administrative professionals this year is 3.0%, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that inflation will come in at 3.6%. That means that most of us are a bit poorer than we were last year. Moreover the AAUP’s online calculator shows that these raises leave us about 13% worse off than we were a decade ago. Paltry raises make it difficult for CSU to retain faculty and staff. Guaranteeing all workers decent wages and annual cost of living adjustments would allow us to put down roots in Fort Collins and invest in our jobs at CSU.
Our chapter of the AAUP has two main strategies for making CSU more democratic and equitable. First, we leverage Faculty Council’s existing powers to hold CSU’s leadership to account. This year we are working to get AAUP members on every Faculty Council committee to set an agenda that advances our interests. Our member Prof. Kari Anderson is now representing faculty on CSU’s Board of Governors, and we will also be campaigning to make that Board a more transparent and accountable institution. Second, we organize to unionize CSU faculty, instructors, researchers, and academic professionals. Colorado labor law still excludes most public sector workers from unionization, but the time is ripe to change that. This year we will be working with our allies in UCW, COWINS, and other public sector unions to pass legislation that grants us the right to bargain collectively with CSU over our wages and working conditions. Our power comes from our union.
We need you to achieve our goals. Please join our general meetings, which are open to all CSU workers. All of our meetings are posted on our website and you can add them to your calendar by clicking this link. And please join the AAUP to fight for higher education at CSU and beyond. Together, we can make CSU a better university.
Anders Fremstad, President, AAUP-CSU
AAUP-CSU Executive Committee
General meeting | Monday, September 14, 4:00-5:00pm | Eddy 104, followed by happy hour in Ramskellar to identify concerns.
We gather monthly to plan actions, discuss concerns, and build solidarity. All are welcome (faculty, staff, students, and community members). You don’t need to be an AAUP member to attend our meetings, and we have a way for you to get involved even if you only have a couple hours per month to spare.
Promote AAUP-CSU to Your Colleagues!
As part of our ongoing membership campaign, we have designed postcards that you can distribute to colleagues and post on your office door. Let folks know that we are working for them! Postcards will be available at the general meeting, or reach out to Kari Anderson if you’d like a stack of postcards!
Stay Informed
Is Your Salary Keeping Up with Inflation?
AAUP-CSU has developed a tool to calculate whether your annual merit raises are keeping pace with inflation. On average, when adjusted for cost-of-living increases, many faculty are worse off than they were in 2020. Try out the calculator and see where you stand.
AAUP National’s Analysis of Department of Education’s “Compact 2.0”
From AAUP National:
Secretary Linda McMahon’s August 3, 2026, announcement should be read in the context of the administration’s 2025 higher education “compact,” which offered access to federal benefits in exchange for institutional acceptance of a detailed list of government demands. The AAUP and other higher education organizations opposed that compact as imposing political litmus tests and governmental control over whom universities teach, what they teach, and who teaches.
The new call is rhetorically softer and does not presently specify consequences. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask whether the requested statements will later be used to construct a compliance regime. Universities should seek express assurance that responding—or declining to respond—will have no bearing on federal grants, contracts, investigations, enforcement decisions, or other treatment by the government.
Universities should not be made answerable to the political program of a particular administration. The Department of Education may enforce the law and administer programs authorized by Congress. It may not dictate whom faculty hire, what they teach, which research questions they pursue, which scholarly perspectives count as “relevant,” or whether institutions publicly endorse the government’s preferred conception of their mission. Public confidence in higher education will be restored through affordability, independent research, academic freedom, and shared governance.
The problem here is that the department is asking presidents and governing boards to publicly commit themselves to a federally framed reform program that reaches faculty hiring, evaluation, curriculum, research priorities, student protest, academic standards, and the purposes scholarship should serve. That confuses public accountability with political supervision of higher education.
Read the AAUP’s full analysis and response here.
Get Support
AAUP works for you!
Read the AAUP’s report on academic freedom and collective bargaining.
Check out AAUP’s collection of reports, articles, and books on a variety of topics in AAUP’s Issues in Higher Ed page. Use their research to advocate for faculty and students on our campus!
Membership has its benefits! Check out the resources available to national AAUP members, including webinars, toolkits, a subscription to Academe, and benefits from the American Federation of Teachers.
