Thank you all so, so much for your support! The signatures and kind words in the comments have been incredibly heartening. We recently passed an incredible 750 signatures on this petition! Together we are already making a difference at NAU, but there are two more important ways you can amplify your voice.
The first thing you can do to help: if you are a faculty, staff, or graduate student employee at NAU, please consider joining the University Union of Northern Arizona in association with the American Federation of Teachers. Only together can we hold NAU accountable and obtain transparency, equity, and justice for all faculty, staff, and graduate employees. Through collective action, we can amplify our voices and demand a seat at the table in a system that exploits those with less power. More information, a way to sign up for our email list, and instructions for joining can be found on our website:
The second thing you can do is to write a personalized letter to the Arizona Board of Regents as soon as you can which will greatly increase your impact beyond the petition signature. You can contact them using the form on their website: https://www.azregents.edu/contact-us
Here are some important points you might consider including to help you with your individual letter:
-An introduction specific to who you are
-A significant portion of Flagstaff’s economy depends on NAU. Making permanent cuts -- versus short term solutions (furlough, temporary salary reductions, etc. -- will severely hamper Flagstaff’s ability to economically recover from the recent COVID-19 relate shut-down. Fewer faculty and/or students means less mortgages/rents paid, a smaller market for local businesses, and more families applying for unemployment.
-Cutting employees in the middle of a pandemic deprives those employees and their families of healthcare when they need it most.
The economic damage caused by a permanent loss in residents—fewer faculty and fewer students—means a far slower recovery for Northern Arizona as a whole.
-Unnecessary cuts threaten student success. Dramatic cuts in a relatively stable, full-time public sector workforce is likely to begin a downward spiral: students leave the university when they can take only large classes or when class offerings are limited. NAU’s ability to provide smaller class sizes and research-driven instruction will be undermined, leading more prospective students to choose other universities, when then contributes to enrollment declines, rather than staving them off by maintaining the quality of education at NAU.
-Arizona’s other public universities (UofA & ASU) are wisely addressing the current crisis through other short-term measures in order to maintain their current work force, and thus quality of education, as much as possible. This solution shows clear awareness by UofA and ASU’s leadership of the need to distinguish between the current crisis and long-term plans.
Thanks again for your support and please keep sharing our petition link!
In Solidarity,
The University Union of Northern Arizona in association with the American Federation of Teachers (UUNA-AFT)