The history of our chapter goes far back to the days when UNO was known as Omaha Municipal University.  There are records indicating that a local chapter here was registered with national AAUP at least as far back as the 1940s. One little known fact is that early AAUP leaders were in large part responsible for the creation of the Faculty Senate on our campus. The first collectively bargained contract was signed in 1981.

In the late 1970s faculty on our campus decided that collective bargaining was necessary. Since members of the previously existing AAUP chapter had been among the leaders of the movement toward collective bargaining, it seemed appropriate that the Chapter would also serve as the faculty's agent in the bargaining process. The first collectively bargained wage agreement was signed in 1981. After much litigation and negotiation, we signed our first full contract in 1984. Under current Nebraska law, we negotiate a new agreement on wages and working conditions every two years.

After the Court of Industrial Relations sided with the union, granting a 6.6% raise in salary for each year of the 1983-84 biennium, the UNO administration threatened to pay for the raise by cutting the equivalent dollars of about 21 faculty lines. Pictured left are Eugene Freund (Education) and Bill Pratt (History), two early UNO-AAUP leaders, with their "Save the UNO 21" campaign, waged on Dodge Street in the bitter cold of January 1984.

National AAUP membership map in 1916