About us

The Faculty Association represents UCLA faculty on employment and academic freedom issues, and advocates for a vibrant and well-funded system of public higher education in California. Through our affiliation with the Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) we coordinate research and advocacy efforts with faculty associations on other UC campuses. Reconstituted in 2024 after a long period of inactivity, the UCLA FA chapter is looking to organize faculty to represent and advocate for our collective interests, under the auspices of the Higher Education Employment Relations Act.

Executive Board

Officers

Siobhan Braybrook (Chair); Associate Professor of Molecular, Cell, & Developmental Biology
Susan Slyomovics (Vice-Chair); Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
Graeme Blair (Secretary); Associate Professor of Political Science
David Teplow (Treasurer & returning board member); Professor Emeritus of Neurology

Members at-large

George Dutton; Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures
Noah D. Zatz; Professor of Law and Labor Studies
Fernando Perez-Montesinos; Associate Professor of History
Anna Markowitz; Associate Professor of Education
Koh Choon Hwee; Assistant Professor of History
Miloš Jovanović; Assistant Professor of History
Mia McIver; Continuing Lecturer of Writing Programs

Advisory Member

Toby Higbie; Professor of History

Our History

In the early 1970’s, a group of Academic Senate faculty at Berkeley concluded that the University by itself could not halt the alarming decline in faculty compensation caused by accelerating inflation and legislative inertia. They also foresaw the day when legislation would allow for public employee unions in higher education. Therefore UC faculty formed associations of Academic Senate faculty first at Berkeley, then at UCLA, and then on all the campuses of the University of California. The FAs helped draft legislation that would help to ensure that the academic quality of the University of California would never be compromised. When that legislation passed (AB 1091, also known as HEERA or The Berman Act) in 1979, it became clear that the authority of the Academic Senate was restricted to academic matters and the Senate could not represent the economic or employment interests of its faculty before the University or the Legislature. A group of Senate faculty–not acting as the Senate but as an independent association of faculty members–would take on that important responsibility.

The Faculty Associations pay little attention to academic and personnel issues on which the authority of the Academic Senate is well-established, such as curriculum, hiring and evaluating faculty, and matters of discipline and grievance; on other issues on which governance is shared between the Academic Senate and the UC Administrations Faculty Associations support the authority of the Senate, monitor the performance of the Senate, and sometimes advocate within the Senate. Within this context, we concentrate our attention on employer-employee issues like faculty salaries, medical, fringe, and retirement benefits, and other conditions of work like teaching load and outside employment policies. As a membership organization we thus have the best of two worlds: better representation in employment matters and no loss of autonomy in academic matters.

Partnership with AAUP and AFT

Since 2014, CUCFA has been in partnership with the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). We are excited to work with the newly-elected AAUP leadership on building a new path forward for higher education in the United States. UCLA AAUP has previously worked to support lecturers in their ongoing contract negotiations with the university, graduate students who are asking for wage increases that would allow them to maintain even minimal standards of living, and professors whose right to determine course content has been challenged by department and university administrators. UCLA-FA members can indicate when joining that they’d like to add-on AAUP membership at special rates. Our partnership allows CUCFA to send delegates to AAUP state-wide and national bodies, influencing higher education policy across the US.

Since 2022, UCLA-FA/AAUP members have also been affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second largest education union in the country with 1,7 million members. You can read more about this partnership at this FAQ. AFT’s Higher Education Division represents 240 000 higher education employees, including 148,000 tenure-line faculty, adjuncts, graduate employees, and academic professionals. AAUP is a separate national body within AFT, with its own advocacy, decision-making structure, and fundraising. UCLA-FA/AAUP members are automatically members of AFT Local 6741, which represents faculty who are part of a campus advocacy (nonunionized) chapter. AFT Local 6741 is in the top 1% of all AFT locals, and thus has substantial voting power at national conventions. Through our partnership, UCLA-FA/AAUP can elect delegates to AFT national conventions, and members have all the legal protections and benefits of AFT membership.