2 For PATFA President: James Seymour

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Fellow Mainers:

It has been very gratifying to serve as Vice President of PATFA for nearly three years, having been energized by the adjunct labor movement while a doctoral student in the mid ‘90s. These early campaigns – like those of PATFA over twenty-five years – have blossomed into a national awareness of the inequities facing American universities in 2014 and convinced me that PATFA CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! To hardworking Maine college professors and to the larger issue of income inequality that currently dominates the political conversation. As a member of the negotiating team this past spring I came to understand that the major concerns facing us include: uniting with student activists at USM (from whom the call for change will be heard) who understand, like PATFA, that students’ learning must come first; actively promoting through traditional press and internet venues (i.e., an advanced web page) the glaring statistical evidence that universities such as ours cannot continue to exclude the majority of its faculty by denying equitable compensation, reasonable access to benefits, and a sense of being part of the process; convincing accreditors, the board of trustees, full-time faculty, and members of the administration who know better that advancing the welfare of its largest sector of employees – its “contingent faculty” – can be achieved economically and will ultimately lead to a stronger and more vital university system. We must be diligent in putting a face on our PATFA members, so that our concerns will be recognized as those of the greater university community.

After receiving a BFA at Boston University and following a decade in the professional theatre in New York, I earned a Ph.D. at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. I then taught as both a tenure track and adjunct faculty member at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the City University of New York, Marymount Manhattan College, and the University of Guam, where I served as chair of the General Education Committee. Moving to Maine in 2011, when I began teaching literature and film classes at University College, was the culmination of a lifetime desire to call this state my home, as my family had owned property here since 1910 and moved to the mid-coast in the ‘70s.

I’d like to become your president because over the course of life I’ve witnessed a progressive shift of public universities towards a more corporate-oriented business model, causing them to lose much of their original vision of an affordable quality college education, while simultaneously participating in the downward economic drift of the American middle class. PATFA can and must help to turn that tide by providing you with greater access to health insurance, progressive pay raises, increased job security, and administrative support. For these reasons, I humbly ask for your vote. See www.seymourspace.com for further information.

James Seymour, Ph.D.