Summer Conference

This poem and dozens of others like it were created during the 2025 MTA Summer Conference. Poets from dpict. conducted interviews with participants then typed them live on classic typewriters. You don’t want to miss what we’ll have to offer for the 2026 Summer Conference - save the dates! Registration will open in May.

Now Accepting Workshop Proposals

The MTA seeking workshop proposals for the 2026 Summer Conference. This year's conference theme is Building on Legacies of Collective Resistance.

The MTA’s Division of Training & Professional Learning seeks proposals in all topic areas related to the conference theme. We are especially interested in receiving proposals for the following categories:

Anti-Oppression Education
Professional and Career Development
Union Skills and Leadership
Community Schools

Workshops vary in length.

Submit a proposal

Deadline for submitting proposals is Sunday, March 1 at 11:59 p.m.

Workshops

We are offering over 60 workshops on union skills, professional development and anti-oppression education.

Anti-Oppression
Bargaining Certificate Program
Community Schools Day
Conference Gatherings
Higher Ed Day
New Member Program
New President Leadership Academy
Next generation leadership program
PDP Courses
Professional Development Workshops
Social Event
Union Skills & Leadership Workshops

The MTA Summer Conference is July 27 to 30 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Last year’s Summer Conference was the biggest in years and highly rated by new and returning participants alike. Our Training & Professional Learning Division staff has prepared information to help your local association or chapter create a budget for sending members to participate in the programs that help our members build power together.

Summer Conference programming, including all workshops and social events, is free for all members who register by July 10. For members who would like to stay overnight in campus dorms, the price is $130/night per person for up to three nights and includes meals from the award-winning UMass Dining. Commuters can attend the conference for free and purchase meals at the Dining Commons or Blue Wall food court. Anyone who registers after July 10 will be charged a $40 late registration fee by UMass Conference Registration Services.

Participants in the New Members Program, New Presidents Academy and Next Generation Leadership Program receive free room and board. Scholarships also are available to provide room and board for Education Support Professionals and adjunct faculty who wish to attend.

Get real-time updates and live sharing with the Summer Conference app.

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2025 Keynote Speakers

Cornel West Sunday, July 27 An American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic and public intellectual. Cornel West acknowledges the gravity of the current moment — a time of moral decay, deepening inequality and spiritual emptiness in the halls of power. He invokes the legacy of prophetic voices — W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and Ella Baker — reminding the audience that every generation faces its own reckoning. With his signature blend of righteous anger and deep love, he calls on us not to despair, but to organize, mobilize and reimagine.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Sunday, July 27 An author, scholar and activist, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor speaks with clarity and urgency about the crossroads we now face. Drawing on history and grounded in the lived experiences of the working class and the Black freedom tradition, she illuminates how this moment — however bleak — is also one of profound possibility. Member-leaders will present prior to Taylor and demonstrate how, now more than ever, we must take action to protect our unions, our workplaces and our democracy.

Maurice "Moe" Mitchell Wednesday, July 30 Maurice "Moe" Mitchell is national director of the Working Families Party, a progressive political party known for cross-endorsing candidates through fusion voting and its deep ties to unions. Maurice is a nationally recognized social movement strategist, a visionary leader in the Movement for Black Lives, and a community organizer for racial, social, and economic justice. Born and raised in New York to Caribbean working-class parents, Mitchell began organizing as a teenager — and never stopped. He is applying his passion and experience to make the WFP the political home for a multi-racial working-class movement.

Suggested Results

Now Accepting Workshop Proposals

Workshops

Get real-time updates and live sharing with the Summer Conference app.

2025 Keynote Speakers

A Diverse Union of Education Workers

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