Nina Ha

Candidate statement

Greetings! My name is Nina Ha and I welcome your support to elect me as the AAAS Contingent Faculty Representative. I would be honored to serve as a spokesperson for colleagues working in less stable conditions within the academy. As a contingent faculty member who teaches at Bunker Hill Community College, I have been advocating for those who feel disempowered or don’t think they belong in the academy, even at AAAS. If elected, I hope to support contingent faculty by initiating opportunities to institutionalize their voices within the AAAS structure. One way is to adopt a similar mentorship model that AAAS provides to its graduate students and faculty, extending it to contingent members. By fostering opportunities to share strategies so that contingent faculty can feel supported by their cohorts at AAAS, I believe that we can make AAAS a community that truly welcomes all voices, particularly those most vulnerable within an unjust system, which truly invites the contributions of all members. With the nature of the academy changing, I seek to continue the informal dialogue that has been taking place at AAAS by formalizing spaces (virtually and physically) to recognize the vital contributions by contingent faculty to AAAS.