The APSCUF strike against the Pennsylvania state system of
higher education ended on Friday evening after just three short days. Both
sides had compelling reasons for ending the strike as quickly as possible. Millions
of dollars were at stake to be sure, but so was the very existence of our union. No one really knew what the end result of a strike would be.
The faculty were unemployed and without health benefits.
Every time I got into my car to run a routine errand, I was acutely aware my
overall health (not to mention my financial assets) was at risk if I got into
an accident. The state system was facing the possibility of giving back close
to $40 million in tuition to more than 110,000 students. Students would get the
money back, but the course credits they were hoping to earn and all the time they’d
spent on the first seven weeks of the semester would be irretrievably lost.
Settling the strike quickly was a winning combination for everyone.
To the union, the collective sigh of relief was palpable. Most of us love our jobs and we worried a
prolonged strike would be both emotionally and financially difficult to
sustain. We worried, too, about our students and how they would feel about us
if the semester was cancelled. Most of us believed the strike would provide
plenty of “teaching moments” about the
power of collective bargaining and the bonding of union brotherhood. Students would
be witnessing democracy in action and a slice of PASSHE history. It was the first time the union had gone on strike and no one knew what might occur.
I don’t think many of my faculty colleagues would have predicted
beforehand or believed afterwards just how well West Chester students embraced
the lessons of the strike and how many lessons about democracy, generosity and
brotherhood we learned from them.
For most West Chester professors, the highlight of our three days on the
picket lines occurred in the early afternoon of Wednesday. Fifty of so of my
colleagues were walking in a tight circle around a small tree on the corner of
High Street and University Avenue, just outside what students call “the castle,”
Philips Hall, where the university administration offices are located.
Picket lines were manned at seven or eight other places on
the outskirts of campus (we were not allowed to physically walk onto the
campus, that was considered crossing the picket line) but our central protest location
was at Philips Hall. We could vaguely
sense something happening out in the academic Quad as the students approached.
They were shouting something but we couldn’t hear it clearly.
Quite suddenly two lines of more than 100 students stormed
through the arches of Philips shouting in unison: “Stu-dents for Fac-ul-ty!
Stu-dents for Fac-ul-ty!” over and over, striding with purpose and far more
energy than we possessed after hours of picketing. They joined our circle and
it tripled in size immediately. Chills
ran up my spine at the moment and smiles broke out on every faculty face. We
were wowed. When I mentioned to a colleague
standing near me that it “felt like Aragorn riding to the rescue at the climax
of Tolkien’s ‘The Return of the King’ ", he agreed. I heard that same analogy
three other times over the next few days.
I caught the eyes of at least half a dozen of my own
students and shouted my thanks to them for taking up our cause. Some nodded.
Some smiled. Some ignored me. Just like they do in class. All of us felt exhilarated to be living a
moment filled with such emotion and a strong sense of justice; of making the
world right again.
I met colleagues from the English department on the picket
line and actually had real-life, real-world conversations with them about what
they were currently reading; what their kids were doing; what kind of
research they were conducting; their perceptions of the final presidential debate. When I meet them in the hallways of Main Hall, I know them as
colleagues whose commitment to education is always evident; who take pride in
their work for the commonwealth and the university and who bring a sense of
mission to the classroom.
We are "educating the 99 percent" is how more than one picket
line poster put it. We serve the ideals of democracy by helping to
educate lower and middle class students. We believe every person with the
ambition to go to college can be served by an education, not just the wealthy.
We see higher education not just as a path to financial security but as a means
to give students the tools to become citizens with a common purpose: the strength of the nation.
Walking the picket line with my colleagues helped turn them
into brothers and sisters, into lifelong friends. Additionally, I hobnobbed with
many professors from other departments, some whom I had never met before and
others whose faces I recognized over many years of teaching but whom I had never
held a conversation with. It made me realize what a special community we are
and how lucky I have been to hold this job and to use my life to such high
purpose.
On Thursday two of my children joined me briefly on the
picket line. Luke, a WCU alum and my oldest child, took time from his work day
to join me in a circle of singers to robustly sing a union song and then spent
his lunch hour walking the line with me, holding a placard. It was the first
time in my life I had ever walked a picket line and I was sharing the moment
with my son. We will both always remember and treasure that hour together.
Fifteen minutes after he left to return to work,
my daughter Lili joined me. She’s a 20-year-old junior at West Chester and, to
be honest, she had very little real interest in spending her new found
free “strike” time hanging with faculty hippies and singing union songs. But when
she caught sight of the carnival atmosphere in front of Philips and saw how many
students were on the corner with us, she smiled at the scene and got into the
slow rhythm of our sidewalk waltz.
I think…I hope…. she learned as much from the experience of
democracy in action as the other students who showed their support. People who heard about our strike may assume we did it to save our faculty health
benefits and to secure raises. I cannot deny those reasons were part of our
motivation. But a more important reason for our strike was to maintain the
quality of higher education within the state system. It is not lip-service to
say this: we did it for our students.
Many of them joined us on the picket lines to thank and support us in our three day-long demonstrations. When students show that much love and appreciation, it’s
hard not to feel a sense of wonder and pride.
All of the faculty hope they realize how much appreciation
we have for them, too.