The Union Boom in Higher Education!

The directory also includes links to hundreds of faculty and other contracts. (NEA Higher Ed members also may find contracts through NEA's own database of higher-ed contracts.) Access to these contracts means union leaders can see and demand the best contract language at their own bargaining tables.

"Change agents now have access to…813 contracts that shed light on ways to improve the working conditions in higher education," notes Adrianna Kezar, University of Southern California professor and director of the Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success.

Welcome to NEA, NMSU Faculty!

When it comes to working conditions at NMSU, faculty identify several issues. For one, pay is about 20 to 30 percent lower at NMSU than its peer institutions. "That's one of the things that hinders us in being able to attract and keep new faculty members," says MacGregor, a professor of Spanish and linguistics. "They say, 'okay, New Mexico State is lovely. You've got great mountains. You've got great weather,' but we can get paid $20,000 more at another institution with a lower teaching load."

Another issue is workload: faculty are exhausted, says Garcia. "There's this feeling of being tapped out, of being stretched beyond capacity," she says. "One of our endeavors, as part of this unionization, is to focus on reasonable workload so that we can achieve quality teaching."

During MacGregor's nearly 30 years at NMSU, at least a dozen university presidents have come and gone. Only three lasted more than three years. At least four were interim office holders. The university hasn't had a "permanent" president since 2022. It hopes to hire one this year.

Meanwhile, MacGregor, García and other NEA-NMSU leaders stay for decades. "You really feel like you're making a difference in the lives of students and in the community," says MacGregor. "That's something really motivating for those of us who have been here a long time."

All five NMSU campuses are federally classified Hispanic-Serving Institutions, with about two-thirds of students identifying as Hispanic and one in three as first-generation college students.

Faculty know these students. "We have decades of collective knowledge and energy," says García. And yet, despite faculty's talent and long relationships to NMSU's communities, their voice has been overlooked by the whirling line of administrators. The existing NMSU faculty senate is an advisory body only.

"There's the perception of shared governance," says García. "But do they take that advice? The outcome is always different than the advice given. I think faculty would like the opportunity to participate in design and detail."

Looking ahead, NEA-NMSU members now have the legal right to sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate a legally binding contract for faculty. Their top priority is better working and learning conditions. Says García, "This union effort is about developing our ideas to influence change in positive ways."

The Surge in Grad-Student Employee Unions

While faculty unions like NEA-NMSU's stake their ground, the propulsive engine of higher-ed unionization today is graduate-student unions. As the new Hunter study notes, the number of grad-student employees (GSEs) who belong to unions has "increased by a dramatic 133% in a little more than a decade."

Nationwide, about four in 10 GSEs belong to a union.

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