Abstract Dr. Robert M. Nielsen was born in Nebraska in 1933. Dr. Nielsen became a professor of mathematics at the University of Delaware. In the late 1960s he was the co-founder of the AFT local for faculty at the university and was president from 1969-1973. In 1973 Nielsen became director of the AFT’s colleges and universities department in which he took both aspects of academic professionalism and union professionalism into creating a strong and viable department within the AFT. Dr. Nielsen was...