I am on strike. My union, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, which represents the faculty of the 14 institutions comprising the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education has called a strike because our contract expired on June 30, 2015, and negotiations remain unproductive.

Before I tell you why my union was forced to strike, I would like to briefly describe my duties, and how they may differ from those of faculty at other institutions, as I believe that many of my fellow citizens have an incorrect impression of what professors such as myself do at PASSHE universities.

I teach four courses each term, and do all the work for these courses. At our institutions there are no teaching assistants or graders.

When a member of your family attends one of our institutions, they are instructed by individuals who possess graduate degrees, most of whom hold a Ph.D.

This dedication to students is what attracted me to Kutztown University, rather than research institutions where faculty teach one or two courses, and a significant portion of that work is often carried out by graduate students.

Make no mistake, I also perform research in my field and provide service to the university. But my other duties are subordinate to my responsibilities to my students, and that’s the model of higher education I believe in.

The quality of that education is of paramount importance to me, and that, much more than anything else, is why my union has called this strike.

There are many issues in contention, but management, in their public pronouncements, emphasizes salary and claims not only that their offers are fair, but that they have continually bargained in good faith. Regrettably, nothing could be further from the truth.

We are more than 470 days past our contract’s expiration, and one thing has been consistent: PASSHE’s insistence on implementing proposals that will degrade the quality of the education we offer and the value of the degrees we confer. No matter how often we point out the damage these proposals will do to our institutions, PASSHE ignores us and claims that the issues are about money.

That’s the issue now. But make no mistake: All negotiations of this sort involve salary and benefits, and paying people fairly is critical to the health of our institutions.

Here’s why compensation and work rules for temporary (adjunct) faculty is such an important issue to you, whether or not you have a direct stake in one of our institutions. If PASSHE’s proposals on salary and workload are implemented, our universities will not be the attractive places for adjunct faculty they are now.

There are alternative sources of employment for these people, and their best and brightest will go elsewhere, where the pay is better and workload less oppressive.

We won’t get the best of them as we do now; we’ll have to fight for the mediocre and often be left to settle for the worst, those who are willing to settle for low pay and heavy workloads. And don’t expect the same effort, the same dedication from someone whose working conditions tells them they aren’t appreciated.

Paying fair salaries and maintaining rules conducive to quality leads to excellence. Low-balling salaries and creating an unpleasant work environment produce similarly obvious results.

If our universities are to provide quality education, they must attract and retain quality faculty. Bad contracts are bad for our students, our faculty, and the reputation of our universities. During a previous round of negotiations, former Governor Rendell correctly stated, “It’s counterproductive for us to have too tough a contract… If we don’t pay our professors well, it will affect the caliber of the students we’re graduating.”

The value of the degrees of current students and alumni and the future of higher education in Pennsylvania are at stake in these negotiations. Will this state have a system of colleges that serves the young people of Pennsylvania and turns out graduates able to compete in the marketplace? If the current negotiations turn out badly, the future of these institutions is most certainly in jeopardy, and an exodus of the best and brightest will be felt in our workplaces.

Our current chancellor was hired under an anti-education governor, and it is clear that he places cost-cutting (except his salary and the administrative bloat in the system) above quality. But it’s not just him.

A change in culture is badly needed. Not once, not one time, during my 14-plus years working for PASSHE have they formed partnerships to collaborate to find solutions to the challenges the system faces. Instead, they choose conflict.

We can do better than this. We must. As a member of a PASSHE faculty, I am the last bastion guarding the quality of education at our institutions. That’s why I’m on strike; I cannot, in good conscience, permit this system’s dedication to quality education to be abandoned.

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Editor’s note: Dr. Daniel Spiegel, is Kutztown University public relations chair and spokesperson for APSCUF and he is a professor, in the Department of Computer Science.