Your Penn State AAUP chapter unites faculty across the Commonwealth to re-envision our university as an institution that serves the common good and general welfare of our citizenry. Our mission is to promote a supportive, equitable and just climate for all.


Your chapter promotes equity and economic security for all faculty and graduate students. Together, we help the higher education community organize to make your goals a reality. Faculty, graduate students, and academic professionals of all ranks, at all of Penn State’s campuses, amplify your collective voice by joining your AAUP chapter, yellow join tab.


Current initiatives

DAY OF ACTION for HIGHER ED 

Sign up here for November 7 Day of Action for Higher Ed.  Join colleagues across the country for a national day of action in support of higher education.

Say No to Loyalty Oaths:

Sign this petition by a coalition of student and faculty groups, sponsored by Students Rise Up and Sunrise movement and including AAUP and Higher Ed Labor United (HELU), calling on university presidents and boards to reject the Trump administration's loyalty oaths. (10/19/25)

10/18/25 No Kings

No Kings Demonstration a success-- 3,000 faculty, students, staff, and community members showed up to say: no fascism in the USA! No ICE kidnappings! Yes to Free speech. Yes to unionizing for a better deal at work! And more! See photos at Penn State's Instagram @pennstateaaup

More Penn State faculty signed union cards with your Penn State Faculty Alliance (PSFA). If you have not yet signed a card, go here

Say No to Loyalty Oaths

10/15/25 Sent to Penn State President and Board of Trustees: The Penn State AAUP (American Association of University Professors) endorses the national AAUP and AFT (American Federation of Teachers) statement urging university governing boards and presidents to uphold free expression and academic freedom in higher education by opposing the Trump administration’s loyalty compact sent to nine universities on October 2, 2025. AAUP/AFT represent 400,000 higher education faculty members across the US. AAUP/AFT is affiliated with the 1.8 million member strong AFT (American Federation of Teachers).

We, Penn State AAUP, urge our Board and President Bendapudi to recognize the threat to academic freedom, free expression, civil rights, and colleagues and students in Pennsylvania and across the globe that this directive poses. We urge our leaders to uphold Penn State’s mission to “provide unparalleled access to education and public service to support the citizens of the Commonwealth and beyond” and to “generate, integrate, apply, and disseminate knowledge that is valuable to society.” Supporting the compact or any future overreach into Penn State’s admissions, hiring, programs, and curriculum would render Penn State’s mission impossible and destroy academic freedom and free expression of ideas. This compact would hinder the work of faculty, staff, and students that make Penn State one of the top universities in the world.


We, Penn State AAUP, urge our Board and President Bendapudi to stand with the students, faculty, staff, and communities that the loyalty compact targets. We ask that you support these nine targeted campuses as well as the students, faculty, staff, and greater local and global community you serve by standing against tyranny and standing for democracy and higher education.

Read your Penn State AAUP statement and the national AAUP/AFT statement that PSU-AAUP endorses here.

Keep Campuses Open

4/23/25 Penn State AAUP sent this letter to the President and Board of Trustees, calling for all of our Commonwealth Campuses to remain open because closing the campuses violates our land grant mission and our responsibility to provide access to education across the state. In addition, Penn State has not made a demonstrably bona fide case for financial exigency nor did it involve faculty in the decision. 

5/21/25

Following last week's statewide meeting with PSFA members and 2 action hours w AAUP members, keep the momentum up across PA to #KeepCampusesOpen & #SavePenn State. Learn about the issue here, clashing with land grant mission here, reactions from Republican lawmakers threatening to pull funding in response to closures here and here.


Nationwide momentum is building: The National AAUP issued a statement opposing the admin’s decision to close the seven campuses bc it would harm students, faculty, and staff; it violates key principles of financial exigency & shared governance, and “threatens the academic integrity of existing programs as well as quality, equity, and access.


Opinions on closure plans: by Angela Lambo of Uniontown, Observer-Reporter here; by Ben Novak, Onward State/StateCollege.com here; by Jay Paterno, StateCollege.Com here

by Jay Paterno, Ted Brown, Alice Pope, Randy Houston and Jeff Balou, StatCollege.com here


Now is the time for you to act-->

Build your own action hour: 

Attend the live streamed BOT meeting this Thursday, May 22 at 5:00pm 

to get the link, go here


Extra Credit: Attend an Organize Every Campus town hall, first one is tonight May 19 at 7pm, register herewith SEIU labor educator Puya Gerami and KB Brower, organizing director for Bargaining for the Common Good at the Action Center on Race and the Economy. Another Org for Every campus will be June 9, register here.


Tuesday May 20, Mutual Defense for Higher Ed: Organizing Across Campuses for Collective Power

C'mon now, don't sit back and make it easy for us to lose our precious Penn State campuses. Other colleges and universities have fought to keep their doors and programs open and positions filled AND WON-- YOU can too! 


Ok, triple last thing combo: follow Penn State AAUP socials: your AAUP chapter Instagram, on Bluesky here, see latest videos of student testimony to #KeepCampusesOpen here and if you haven't updated your membership, now's a great time to do so.


Please fill out this contact form if you can spend 30 minutes on communications of this message: #KeepCampusesOpen, #SavePennState


SUMMER INSTITUTE = Power & Fun

Register today


2025 AAUP/AFT Summer Institute

Thursday, July 17–Sunday, July 20

The 2025 Summer Institute presents a crucial opportunity for AFT and AAUP members to learn how to fight back while continuing to advance our shared vision for higher education that serves our students and our communities, drives our regional and national economies, and is truly affordable and accessible to all. We are bringing the Summer Institute to Morehouse College, a historically Black institution, in order to emphasize our continued commitments to racial equity, highlight the ongoing and meaningful role that HBIs play in the realization of our national democratic ideals, and recognize the organizing being done by scholars of color.

All AAUP and AFT members are welcome at the Summer Institute—no experience necessary! Together, we will organize, fight, and win.

Registration and full itineraries are available here. 

In the news: 

Community Voices Rise As Penn State Targets Campuses for Closures (Centre Daily Times, May 19, 2025)

Penn State Board Should Reject Closure Plans (AAUP National, May 16, 2025)

Professors fight PSU campus closures (Altoona Mirror, April 25, 2025)

Penn State’s plan to close some Commonwealth campuses gets pushback from faculty and two trustees (The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25, 2025)

Penn State AAUP calls on administration to keep commonwealth campuses open (Center Daily Times, April 24, 2025)

The issue:


Therefore, the Penn State AAUP chapter calls on the administration to reverse its decision, and, from today forward, to involve faculty as primary decision makers in academic budgeting. In addition, the Penn State AAUP chapter calls on all faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members to come together to organize collectively the way that Hamspshire (and Hampshire post-COVID), Guildford, and Rutgers University have done to keep campuses open and programs staffed. Using our own creative ways that work for our beautiful statewide quilt of campuses, you can keep your campuses and academic programs whole, and to uphold our Land Grant charge.


Read the full letter here.


Defending Higher Ed & Healthcare

WPSU reporting


Please fill out this contact form if you can spend 30 minutes on communications of this message.

Take action to stop the national cuts announced that include dismantling the Department of Education. If you can spend 30 minutes per week for the next 3 weeks  please sign up here.


Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters

May 13, 2025

Register here for a virtual discussion on Eve Darian-Smith’s new book Policing Higher Education: The


Defending Higher Ed & Workers across US

Amid Right-Wing Attacks on Education, the American Association of University Professors Organizes for Academic Freedom (March 14, 2025, Ms. Magazine)


"Look, this is going to be a long fight. We need everyone on board. This is why we’re developing a multi-pronged approach and building alliances with students, other unions and the public. This is the only way to stop the anti-worker and anti-union policies that are being promoted by Trump and his administration." - AAUP Vice-President Rotua Lumbantobing.


March 31, noon on zoom, register in advance here.


Independently audited financial statements by accounting firm Deloitte in 2022 show that Penn State made $100 million more than we cost to run in 2022, see pp. 2-3 (this report is dated November 21, 2022). We are $2.6 billion in net assets wealthier than we were in 2020 (p.9). Independently audited financial statements by accounting firm Deloitte in 2021 show that operating revenue in 2021 was $500 billion greater than operating expenses (p. 2-3), and in 2022 it was $!00 million greater. These documents show that in 2022, our liquid net assets without donor restrictions is over $5 billion (see p. 9, net assets without donor restrictions). For fun, look at how much more in reserves we have now than we did in 2013 when Howard Bunsis and Rudy Fichtenbaum were last on campus just after this AAUP chapter was formed, to support organizing


BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BUDGET? Alright, you really want to hear about it? The $166 million Proposed Operating Budget for 2021-2022 deficit PSU President mentions as justification for cuts and layoffs was later projected to be $127 million a few months after it was first proposed and could be easily absorbed by the surplus Penn State annually generates with revenues greater than expenses by $600 million in the last two fiscal year combined. The story remains the same going back in time, each year: Penn State runs at a profit, which is why Moody's and S&P give us such high credit ratings. Moody's details Penn State's massive and growing liquidity and forecasts "continued revenue gains" and praises our "outsized unrestricted monthly liquidity of $7.8 billion provided a very strong 462 days cash on hand in fiscal 2021, which is about double the peer median" (Moody's Credit Opinion, Penn State, April 22, 2022, p. 4).


Penn State also publicizes our excellent credit ratings and reports by Moody's and S&P. See this May 2022 press release and expect another coming soon in April or May, ahead of administration predicted layoffs due to bugetary woes. Don't let this talk of budget crisis lull you into acceptance of these decisions as a fait accompli. The financial statements show the full picture, and so do the Moody's and S&P credit ratings and reports. AND so does Penn State's own PR on itself.