Membership Highlights!

This installment of Member Highlights introduces Juan José and his vision of a more equitable future.

As you read, think about your story. Why are you involved with the union?

Meet Juan José!

Hi all! My name is Juan José Bueno Holle, I’m a faculty member in Teaching Credentials, in the College of Education. I am currently an Assistant Professor (since 2024), but have been part of CFA since 2020 when I started at Sac State as a Lecturer.

I hadn’t had a chance to join a union before I came to Sac State and immediately joined CFA without necessarily too much thought. Through my personal and professional experiences in higher education and in K-12 teaching, I had learned to think of human dignity as a collective effort, not an individual one; that our own dignity is directly tied to the dignity of the social structures that we participate in.

The dignity of university faculty everywhere has been under attack for years through a system that consistently pushes for lower pay, less benefits, larger classes, higher workloads, and surveillance through technological adaptations we never asked for. To put it one way, this does not feel good to me. Worse, we’re told in order to improve our working conditions students’ tuition payments have to keep going up, which pits faculty against students and effectively sacrifices the very people we’re here to serve. There’s a distinct lack of human dignity in this, a lack of care.

I joined this union because I find myself seeking opportunities to collectively ask the important questions: What kind of a future do we want? What kind of social and institutional structures do we want to build? How do we make those structures more just for everyone? How do we build them together across communities?

Even if we don’t always agree on the answers to these questions, I think that we can find people who are willing to make the time and space to ask them. The process is slow and needs patience, but it’s an act of care and solidarity and, fundamentally, of dignity.

Let’s keep making time and space to ask the important questions. This is our union and we need everyone’s voice.

~ Juan José, Assistant Professor, Teaching Credentials, College of Education

Feeling inspired to take on Juan José’s call? YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED! We want to hear from you. Do you have a union story you want to share? You could be next to feature in Membership Highlights! 

Reach out and let us know.

Your Union is You!

Return to Newsletter Items here