In Memory of Flo Hatcher (1937–2026)

Throughout her career, longtime AAUP leader Flo Hatcher worked on many levels to better the working conditions of faculty, especially faculty in contingent positions, and to ensure that higher education served the common good. At the national level, Flo served multiple terms on the AAUP's governing Council and its executive committee, and had leadership roles in the AAUP's former sister organization, the AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress. She chaired the Committee on Contingency and the Profession, chaired and vice-chaired the AAUP's Assembly of State Conferences (ASC), and served on the Committee on Governance, the Membership Committee, and the Committee on Inter-Organizational Relationships. She presented at many conferences, and served on numerous award committees and grievance panels. In 2009, she was honored by the ASC in recognition of her many years of service to the AAUP and, in particular, to the ASC.

For nearly twenty-five years, Flo ably served as the executive director of the Connecticut Conference of the AAUP (CSC-AAUP), holding this group together and ensuring meaningful connections between AAUP chapters and members in the state. A high point of the state conference's activity was annual participation in AAUP's Capitol Hill Day where Flo organized and led groups of twenty or more faculty activists to meetings with every CT congressional office for substantive discussions on AAUP position papers, ending with a gala reception on Capitol Hill. Her advocacy led to Congressman Joe Courtney's receiving the AAUP's Henry T. Yost Award at Capitol Hill Day in 2011.

At the local level, Flo represented contingent faculty on the Southern Connecticut State University faculty senate and the senate's executive committee. She served as grievance officer and union consultant in the Connecticut State University system. In addition to working with the AAUP, she served on the international steering committee for the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL) and presented at many COCAL conferences, served on the international steering committee for Campus Equity Week, and on the North American Alliance for Fair Employment Campus Action Group.

This non-exhaustive list of service simply doesn't do justice to the flair and the grace that Flo Hatcher effortlessly brought to every aspect of her life and her work. Her innate graciousness-taking a personal interest in each person and their issues, making sure everyone was comfortable-combined with the way she instinctively looked at the world through the eyes of an artist is what made everyone who came into contact with her admire her and remember her.

Read more about the lifelong artist and activist here.