Dear colleague,
While we hope you are enjoying the final days of summer break, we know many of you are finalizing your syllabi this week. At the start of the fall semester, we want to make sure that faculty, staff, students, and the larger Rutgers community are aware that we are working without a contract. We encourage you to include the following syllabus statement with students to open that conversation. Additionally, our unions have developed materials and language to address several classroom concerns so that you are better equipped to support international students, transgender and gender nonconforming students, and defend against encroachments on academic freedom, as well as a suggested AI syllabus statement for the classroom.
Contract Campaign Syllabus Statement
This course is taught by human union labor. Teachers—like all employees—do our best work when we are paid fairly, have job security, and reasonable workloads, but Rutgers instructors have been working without a union contract since June 30, 2026. Our working conditions are your learning conditions, so I encourage you to ask me what this means and why it matters.
Resources for International Students and Workers
Our unions have compiled a list of resources to help us protect our immigrant and international colleagues, students, and communities. We will keep this list updated and clarify any confusions, so please email us at aaup@rutgersaaup.org if you have suggestions or questions you need answered. If you’d like to participate in the International Workers Solidarity Committee, click here and fill out this form, indicating this area of union involvement in the last question.
Suggested Syllabus Statement for Supporting Trans Students
A union working group has drafted a suggested syllabus statement to demonstrate support for trans people in the Rutgers community. The statement includes university resources our students can access. You can read the suggested statement here.
Academic Freedom Classroom Toolkit
Our unions’ Joint Academic Freedom Committee developed a statement reaffirming our commitment to academic freedom in the classroom that instructors can include in their syllabi; you can find it here. There are more academic freedom resources on this webpage. If you want to discuss these issues with students, you can use these slides created by the committee.
Artificial Intelligence Impact Statement
Our unions’ Joint Media and Narrative Committee and Climate Justice Committee collaborated in writing this recommended statement about artificial intelligence. The statement is based on the work of the national AAUP’s Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Academic Professions, who also has many helpful resources for higher education workers to develop classroom and workflow policy around AI. See the tab “for students and instructors”.
If you have a question about any of these resources—or anything else—you can email aaup@rutgersaaup.org.
In solidarity,
Becky, HP, and Cathy
Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Heather Pierce, President, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
Dr. Catherine Monteleone, President, AAUP-BHSNJ