No Name in the Street

State Representative Reuven Carlyle is a smart guy with big ideas and big shoes to fill. He has recently published a three part series on higher education on the Official Reuven Carlyle Blog. The first and third posts skim the surfaces of a wide variety of higher ed topics. Some of the ideas are trenchant and some probably don’t stand up to closer scrutiny.

But his second post, “Community organizing for change,” hit the nail squarely on the head. Representative Carlyle points out that he has filled the 36th District seat of the legendary and recently retired Representative Helen Sommers, who is perhaps the best legislative friend Washington’s universities have ever had. For 36 years Representative Sommers recognized the value of Washington’s universities and made sure that their budgets were protected. Her commitment to the universities was so consistent that Washington’s university leaders grew complacent in the glow of her patronage.

Representative Carlyle then makes the point that university administrators, faculty, alumni, and students have lost any sense of urgency about the “reality of the need to organize like Hell for your own future.” Washington’s budget situation is bad and getting worse and if our universities expect to survive, we need to do a much better job of organizing our constituencies to make the case for 4-year higher education to their elected representatives. Representative Carlyle and his colleagues rarely hear about Washington’s universities from anyone other than the “insiders” (university presidents, lobbyists, and labor leaders) and that needs to change.

By and large, Washington’s legislators understand the value of universities and, when they’re not calling us arrogant, tend to think pretty well of us. But at the end of the day, what elected representatives do is count votes and money. And if I had a nickel for every time a state legislator said to me something like, “Gee, I think you guys are great, but I never hear from any of my constituents about you, so you’re never gonna be at the top of my list,” I could fully fund several campaigns.

Olympia needs to hear from crowds from our universities and they need to hear often. The biggest impediment to this is that everyone who works at a state university is a state employee. Organizing is politics and the state’s pesky ethics laws make it illegal for us to engage in politics on state time or with state resources. If we want to motivate crowds and point them toward Olympia, we have to do it off campus, after hours, with home emails.

This is where the United Faculty of Washington State stands ready to help. With the support of our statewide affiliates, the Washington Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers—Washington, we have an extensive organizing and advocacy structure that uses no state resources. In the last legislative session, our members sent over 1,500 emails to state legislators. We are now prepared to organize well beyond faculty. If you are a student, an alumnus, or just a Washington state citizen who cares about university education, join our mailing list now. We will keep you informed, and make it easy for you to contact your representatives.

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