by Brian Cole

Dr. Peter D.G. Brown thinks his family history of advocacy may play a part in his own fight against inequality in academe: his father was a lifelong supporter of minority rights who contributed generous amounts of money to African-American and Native American organizations; his mother was a union organizer in Hollywood in the 1930s; and his great-grandparents hid slaves and provided logistical support in southern Illinois for the Underground Railroad in the early 1800s. Now it’s his turn.

Armed with his designation as a fully-tenured distinguished service professor of German, Brown has provided structure for adjuncts and helped them fight for part-time faculty equity on the SUNY New Paltz campus since 2003. His decision hasn’t been popular—he says the administration views him as a “wild cannon, an uncontrollable person, and a person they’d rather not deal with.” Although he knows that his work with adjuncts has made some members of the faculty union unhappy, Brown doesn’t seem to care, especially now that he has recently been elected as a union officer.

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