On the Road
with Rachel Hendrickson

At this year's Baruch College Center for Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions annual conference, it was my pleasure to listen to Larry Oveson from Minnesota talk about a series of mergers that have taken place in Minnesota over the past five years.

Larry is co-president of the Minnesota State Faculty, the final product of what must be the most merged higher education group in history.

First, the 17 NEA-represented technical college locals and an equal number of AFT locals merged into one statewide organization. Next, the state education unions merged, making Larry's community college locals joint NEA/AFT affiliates.

Then, the state merged all two-year institutions under one board. Following this, the already merged unions representing community college faculty and the merged unions representing tech college faculty merged.

Now that the dust has settled, the task before Larry and his co-president, Ed Schones, is to negotiate a statewide contract containing the best of the contracts they individually fought for. I'm sure they can do it.

...Now to another conference and a point of personal privilege. Arranging an NEA higher education conference is hard work, but I enjoy it.

Each year, I meet new members and leaders who come to the conference to network, to learn and to teach their colleagues. I hear excitement in the halls as folks explore insights from sessions they attended.

Working the conference is exhausting, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. Thank you to all who attended. Next year we'll be in Austin, March 1-3. I hope more of you come by to say "howdy."

—Rachel Hendrickson coordinates NEA higher ed activities.