Dear Students,
We write to you as the leadership of the MU professors’ union, formally named the Faculty Association of Monmouth University (FAMCO), to let you know that we are here to support you in whatever way we can as you navigate the impact of the repressive wave of Executive Orders President Donald Trump issued in his first week in office, and the expected onslaught of additional authoritarian policy changes to come. In particular, to our students and members of the larger MU community who are immigrants or are undocumented, to our LGBTQ students and their families, to our black and brown students and their families, and to all of us who are, or will be made, targets of increasingly anti-democratic policies and practices under the new Trump administration, the Executive Committee of FAMCO denounces these attacks on our students, on the mission of higher education, and on the foundations of a liberal, democratic society.
As a union, FAMCO negotiates and enforces labor agreements with the University around our salaries, benefits, and conditions of work as your professors. But we do more than that. We work to protect and improve our livelihoods as professors not only because it helps us personally and helps our profession, but because we know that our working conditions as teachers and researchers are also your learning conditions as students. We know that an injury to us is an injury to you, just as we know that what harms you, harms us all. In these dangerous times ahead, FAMCO is committed to using our power to do our best to protect you inside our classrooms, on campus, and in the larger community. Should you be a student who needs help locating safe spaces on campus and other available resources in these weeks and months to come, please contact Dr. Johanna Foster, Professor of Sociology and President of FAMCO, at jfoster@monmouth.edu, or stop by Bey Hall 243, so we can do our part to help connect you to the support you may need. For a full list of FAMCO officers who are always willing to hear from students, please find us on the MU website at https://www.monmouth.edu/famco/.
Signed, Dr. Johanna Foster on behalf of The FAMCO Executive Committee
