Our Mission

Our mission for the USC AAUP Chapter is based on the following commitments:


USC cannot function without its workers. We are committed to supporting all USC workers—from healthcare workers to facilities staff to classroom instructors—as they campaign for what they need to work effectively and with dignity.

We are committed to making the ideals of academic freedom, meaningful faculty governance, and administrative transparency a reality in the everyday operations of USC. We build campaigns around key issues we identify as a chapter and then advocate for changes in policy and practice.


USC-AAUP advocates for securing the best possible conditions for pedagogy, both instructor teaching conditions and student learning conditions. USC-AAUP is committed to solidarity with graduate student workers, and to ensuring that USC serves the needs of all students, including BIPOC, international, and undocumented students.


USC-AAUP is committed to standing in solidarity with casualized faculty. Teaching, learning, and research—core functions of the university—rest on the shoulders of adjunct and RTPC faculty. We will fight for fair compensation and to resist precarity.

“The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom and shared governance; to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; to promote the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education; to help the higher education community organize to make our goals a reality; and to ensure higher education's contribution to the common good. Founded in 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities.”