What is FSU’s 'The Point'?
9/4/2025
Greetings, Colleagues:
Welcome back to campus! We hope the first week of the semester has treated you as kindly as possible.
What is The Point? Although we absolutely do not have an answer to the broader existential question, The Point is a weekly email blast the FSU sends out to raise questions that go beyond the nuts-and-bolts of our union’s regular weekly informational communication. The FSU has used this blast for more than five years to talk about both contract and non-contract related campus issues, broader higher education concerns, national labor movement conversations, and so on. Although The Point is almost always written by a member of the FSU, it does not represent “the official position” of the union. It’s meant to inform, but also provoke, and get us all thinking about a series of issues related to education, labor, and beyond.
If you are interested writing an edition of The Point, or have a topic you think should be covered, please write us (fsu@umb.edu). We are always looking for new voices and new topics to share with our members. Most missives are somewhere between 500 and 1000 words. And we are also happy to explore other formats beyond the “op-ed” style that most of our offerings tend to follow. We will even interview you if that makes it a bit less daunting!
To give you a more concrete sense of some of the topics we cover, in the coming weeks we will be writing about Trump’s ongoing attacks on libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions; the troubling firing/disciplining of faculty on campuses across the country who speak out on various issues; and the unilateral ending of collective bargaining for federal employees. We will also write about how folks in higher ed continue to organize and fight back against threats to academic freedom, free speech, job security, union rights, and more.
The committee for this year’s The Point currently includes Jessica Holden, Healey Library; Nick Juravich, History; Jeff Melnick, American Studies; and Steve Striffler, Labor Studies. If you want to join our committee, write an edition of The Point, or if you just have an idea, please write us at fsu@umb.edu.