In response to the Trump Administration’s destructive “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” AAUP members from Pennsylvania’s Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts Colleges gathered on Saturday, November 8th for a “Solidarity Summit” in Harrisburg. Dickinson College’s chapter, with financial support from the Pennsylvania Conference of AAUP’s “Strategic Initiative Funds,” organized the event.
Members from six AAUP chapters participated in the workshop and brainstorming sessions: Allegheny College, Bucknell University, Dickinson College, Haverford College, Franklin & Marshall College, and Lafayette College. Inspired by similar actions at many institutions of higher education across the United States in 2025 they crafted a draft Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) for Pennsylvania’s liberal arts colleges that can be tailored for individual campuses. Eighty-one percent of Dickinson’s faculty approved their MADC in the state this past spring.
“This was an important occasion to articulate the crucial relationship between the liberal arts and core AAUP principles,” said Dennis Deslippe, PA-AAUP Conference Board President. The event, which ended with several “action” items for the coming months, underscores “the seriousness of the moment and the AAUP’s commitment to resist the erosion of academic freedom and free expression, and to strengthen shared governance with trustees and administrators.”
The Summit included hands-on sessions on improving chapter organizing that is unique to the small liberal arts college environment. Participants strategized ways to strengthen faculty handbooks, create alliances with student organizations and alumni, coordinate cross-institutional cooperation, and build power in the political sphere.
AAUP LIberal Arts Chapters Champion “Compact”