In my six months working in the Provost’s Office, the ongoing negotiations between the Wellesley Organized Academic Workers (WOAW) union and the College have never come up. Though a student assistant is a highly unlikely confidant, I am nevertheless surprised that I’ve failed to witness even a general acknowledgment of this contentious situation in the very office responsible for mitigating it. This lack of transparency and honest conversation reflects how Wellesley’s Administration has failed to divulge information regarding the negotiations to the College community.
One pertinent email reached students in 2025 and only because of the direct consequences we might face following the recent strike authorization vote. In this correspondence, the College vowed to prioritize protecting the academic experience in the event of a strike, but, besides this platitude, provided no material information regarding the state of the bargaining process.
Maintaining separation between the Union and student body via this knowledge barrier allows administrators to continue putting a bandaid on the College’s open wound; students, arguably one of the most powerful checks on administrative action, are unable to enforce its accountability to Union demands.
This power dynamic, however, would shift dramatically away from the College if a strike were to be called. On February 21, the Union announced the results of their vote, with an overwhelming majority of 93% in favor of authorizing the implementation of a strike if deemed necessary by the bargaining committee.
This act effectively increased the pressure on the Administration to respond to the demands of WOAW or face the consequences of a disrupted student body and, by extension, a larger community of alums, parents, and other — tenure-track — faculty. The College, however, continues to reject Union proposals on key issues such as dependent care, foreign national employees, tax assistance and child care benefits, while increasing the already egregious teaching load of non-tenure track professors by 25%.
Evidently, the threat of a walkout is insufficient to force the Administration’s hand. As a result of this, I am firmly in favor of commencing a Union strike. Such a statement might seem drastic coming from a first-year still adjusting to life at Wellesley, but it is more so evidence that the challenges faced by the Union matter deeply to the student body, even its newest members.
The Wellesley community has always been strongest when it stands together; solidarity with the potential strike is an opportunity for students to acknowledge the decades-long sacrifices made by non-tenure track faculty and to fight to preserve the long-term well-being of the college. A momentary interruption to classes is a small sacrifice, and one that I believe students are largely comfortable with, to achieve fair compensation and working conditions for our professors.
The leveraging power of the potential strike resides in the vastness of WOAW; composed of over 125 non-tenure track and postdoctoral scholars, the Union constitutes approximately 28% of all Wellesley faculty. Despite assurances that the College would “minimize disruptions and ensure the continuity of [its] academic program,” it is highly infeasible that these disruptions would indeed be minor. With more than a quarter of the academic faculty gone, a costly contingency plan would be necessary to cover the immense number of classes taught by Union faculty members. Hiring guest lecturers, hosting online courses and employing adjunct professors are a few ways gaps could be covered in the short term, but maintaining this patchwork solution would be unsustainable due to its monetary costs and organizational complexity.
In addition, the disparities in educational quality between these methods would undoubtedly cause student concern, sowing distrust of the College’s Administration among students. Ultimately, both the strike and the College’s current response tactics would place students in a precarious position — but there would be no escaping community backlash against Administration. I am hopeful and confident that this unified front would force the Administration to make direct concessions to the Union’s demands.
The situation unfolding between the Wellesley Administration and the WOAW Union presents a pivotal moment for our community. The Administration’s lack of transparency and communication regarding the ongoing negotiations has created a significant knowledge gap, leaving students in the dark about the real challenges facing non-tenure track faculty. As we witness the Union’s overwhelming vote in favor of strike authorization, it’s clear that this issue cannot be ignored any longer.
A strike, while disruptive in the short-term, would serve as a necessary step to remind the Administration of the deep value non-tenure faculty bring to the academic experience, and encourage enduring change. The strength of the Wellesley community has always been in its solidarity, and now, more than ever, it is crucial that students stand alongside their non-tenure track professors in support of fairness and equity — in support of a strike.
Contact the editor(s) responsible for this story: Caitlin Donovan
