On Friday, March 13, the federal government declared a national state of emergency in response to increasing concerns about COVID-19. Jurisdictions in the Washington, DC, area also made announcements about states of emergency and closed local schools.

Because of recommendations about social distancing and the need to “flatten the curve” of virus transmission, AAUP leadership made a decision to have all AAUP staff transition to telework as of the end of the business day on Monday, March 16, 2020, until at least Tuesday, March 31. The best way to reach staff members is to write to the appropriate email address for the staff member or department you need to contact. Please consult the AAUP staff page for a list of individual and departmental email addresses.

We appreciate your patience as we manage this abrupt transition. We will provide updates about the AAUP’s operating status here and will continue to update our web page with COVID-19 resources for higher education. Please note that we are monitoring the situation and will make a decision in the coming weeks about the status of the biennial meeting. In the meantime, we are extending the early-bird registration deadline for the June 18–21 AAUP Conference and Biennial Meeting until May 7.

Please see the AFT and AAUP Principles for Higher Education Response to COVID-19, which we developed with our organizing partner, the American Federation of Teachers. This is a challenging time for higher education, and we share the concerns of many faculty members about the short- and long-term impact of institutional responses to COVID-19 and of transitions to online education at colleges and universities around the country.

Although we will communicate with members by email about any important developments relating to the AAUP’s operating status, subscribing to our Academe Blog and following us on Facebook and Twitter are good ways to see content related to COVID-19 and higher education that we are sharing on a regular basis.

Julie Schmid
Executive Director