On Wednesday, April 26, the President of the American Federation of Teachers (our parent union!), Randi Weingarten is coming to the UO campus to deliver the inaugural Margaret Hallock Lecture on Women’s Rights. Her speech will also mark the final address in the Wayne Morse Center’s two-year look at the future of education in America. Randi’s talk is in the Giustina Ballroom of the Ford Alumni Center at 7 pm. It is free and open to the public.
All faculty are strongly encouraged to attend.
Weingarten promotes what she calls “solution-driven unionism”—an approach to collective bargaining and collective action that unites the interests of union members and those they serve in the pursuit of solutions that benefit students, schools and communities.
Weingarten has launched major efforts to place real education reform high on the nation’s and our union’s agendas. She created the AFT Innovation Fund, a groundbreaking initiative to support sustainable, innovative and collaborative education reform projects developed by members and their local unions. She also oversaw the development of the AFT’s Quality Education Agenda, which advocates for reforms grounded in evidence, equity, scalability and sustainability.
Hear Weingarten’s thoughts on the future of education and how we can push back against the Trump administration’s devastating agenda on Wednesday, April 26 at 7 pm on the Giustina Ballroom.
More about Weingarten: She began her relationship with AFT in 1986, working as a lawyer in New York handling contentious arbitration cases on behalf of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2. She eventually became lead counsel for Local 2, then, after working as a teacher in Brooklyn, began serving as an officer in UFT. She rose through the ranks of AFT, becoming President of the union in 2008.