The Duck & Cover

November 6, 2025

WOKE Toolkit. Teach-in this Friday. New Faculty Club this Thursday.

Over the past few weeks, your union has been assembling a toolkit that we hope will help our members deal with the current war on knowledge and education. With a bit of gallows humor, we’ve taken to calling it the “W.O.K.E. Toolkit.” It contains general advice as well as links to further information on: Resources on Campus Dangers Beyond the University Walls Protecting Yourself Online Dealing With Doxxing Classroom Precautions Dealing With ICE Please reach out to David Luebke, your VP for Tenure-Track Faculty, at luebke@uauoregon.org if there is any additional information you would like included in this resource. You…

October 29, 2025

Membership Meeting Thursday 5-7pm. Open Enrollment and TRP Reminders

The Fall term General Membership Meeting (GMM) is this Thursday, 5-7pm in Gerlinger Lounge. Dinner and drinks will be available at 5:00, business begins at 5:30. If you can’t join in person, you can Zoom in here. In addition to updates on our efforts to push back against layoffs and the work units should be doing to revise Review and Promotion policies, much of the conversation will focus on current threats to higher education and what we are doing (and should be doing) as a union to push back. Please join us for this important conversation! Important Reminders Open enrollment…

October 21, 2025

The UA Politics Committee is Fighting Back. How you can help.

TL;DR: United Academics’ Politics Committee has been working tirelessly to meet with elected leaders, strengthen coalitions, and craft an Oregon Compact on Higher Education with a positive vision for higher education in the state. Help amplify these efforts by: Signing Higher Education Labor United’s No Loyalty Oaths in Higher Ed Signing the AAUP’s Statement We Stand for Education and Against the Trump Higher Education Compacts Signing the petition against cuts to librarians and library staff Signing the petition to save the UO Forensics program There is much work to be done. Reach out to info@uauoregon.org to see how you can put…

October 6, 2025

Support our Libraries! Town Hall on 10/10. Fall Term Reminders and Events

Support Our Libraries, Protect Our Colleagues Our union continues to fight the layoffs announced at the libraries in September 2025. Please sign our petition on Action Network and help us gather public support to protect our colleagues and oppose these harmful position eliminations. Libraries stewards are also reaching out to professional organizations for support in urging UO administration to change course. Read CAT’s writeup about how our union fought cuts in the latest HELU (Higher Education Labor United) newsletter. Join us on Zoom on Friday October 10, noon-1:30 for: Fall Term Reminders Fall Raises During the most recent round of bargaining negotiations, the…

September 26, 2025

Welcome back for Fall quarter! Upcoming events and useful syllabus language.

Hello! My name is Kate Mills and this is my first year serving as president of your union, United Academics of the University of Oregon. As the seasons change and the academic year comes to its official start, I want to take a moment to share how excited I am to be your colleague here at the University of Oregon. We begin this academic year as an incredibly strong union that has repeatedly demonstrated collective care and support for each other. Shortly after 14 months of bargaining to secure our current contract, faculty continued to show up for each other…

September 11, 2025

Layoffs, Board of Trustees, & Our Ongoing Fight for Reform

We’re reaching out to you today with an urgent request: If you received a layoff notice, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing info@uauoregon.org. There are two reasons why we need to know: first, administration has not informed our union of layoffs in advance; and second, if we are to file a grievance in your defense, we must do so within a very short period of time. It is therefore crucial that anyone who is laid off inform the union as quickly as possible. Our collective efforts in recent weeks were successful in staving off the closure…

September 9, 2025

UA response to Admin’s change of course

You have probably read the administration’s communication today that announced tenure-related cuts will not be on the table for the upcoming year, and that there will be overall fewer cuts to current workers and academic programs than we previously expected. While we were glad to hear that the administration is finally entertaining logical and humane strategies to mitigate their projected budget deficit-such as hiring freezes for currently vacant positions-we are still very upset to hear that Career faculty, classified staff colleagues, and other workers are still under threat. We will continue working with faculty who are likely to be affected…

September 4, 2025

Oregon Legislators Express Alarm About UO Leaders’ Planned Cuts, UO Senate Prepares for Possible “No-Confidence” Vote in President Scholz

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, September 4, 2025 Contact: Kristy Hammond, UA Staff; Chris Sinclair, UA Communications VP Phone: (541) 636-4714 Email: info@uauoregon.org ; sinclair@uauoregon.org Oregon Legislators Express Alarm About UO Leaders’ Planned Cuts, UO Senate Prepares for Possible “No-Confidence” Vote in President Scholz Amid a public outrage over planned cuts at the University of Oregon, Oregon state leaders and the UO Senate have issued letters rebuking the administration’s plans for program eliminations and faculty layoffs. In a public letter to President Karl Scholz, Senator Floyd Prozanski, Senator James Manning, Speaker of the House Julie Fahey, Representative Lisa Fragala,…

August 27, 2025

TIME SENSITIVE – Gathering Signatures & Delivering Our Petition to UO Leaders on Fri, Aug 29 at 10am

Fellow union members, As you know, The Scholz/Moffitt administration plans to send rushed layoff announcements sometime during the week of September 8. We need YOU to take several actions THIS WEEK to push back against the administration’s disastrous plans. Urgent, Time-Sensitive Actions for This Week: Send out mass faculty Canvas Announcements on Thurs, Aug 28 at 12pm Circulate our our mass petition and show up to deliver in person to leaders at Johnson Hall on Fri, Aug 29 at 10am Write your UO Senator and zoom into the emergency open Senate meeting on Fri, Aug 29 at 12pm To ensure…

August 27, 2025

Media Advisory – United Academics of the University of Oregon – 08/27/2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Wednesday, August 27, 2025 Contact: Kristy Hammond, UA Staff; Chris Sinclair, UA Communications VP Phone: (541) 636-4714 Email: info@uauoregon.org ; sinclair@uauoregon.org Faculty Union to Deliver Public Petition to UO Leaders on August 29, Local and National Organizations Respond to Plan for Cuts According to an August 18 email sent by President Scholz and Provost Long, internal decisions about planned program cuts and faculty layoffs at the University of Oregon may be made as early as August 29, with layoff notices issued the week of September 8. At the same time, the United Academics (faculty…

September 28, 2023

Holvey Recall

As many of you know, UFCW Local 555 has launched an effort to recall State Representative Paul Holvey. Holvey has represented District 8, which includes most of south Eugene, in the Oregon legislature for the past 18 years. We believe this recall effort is misguided. Representative Holvey’s record has been exemplary in support of workers, consumers, and small businesses. He is a former union carpenter with deep roots in the labor movement and has a solid track record of improving the lives of working Oregonians. He has consistently supported increased funding for education at all levels. This recall effort stems…

February 20, 2023

Solidarity with UA Student Workers

University of Oregon United Academics supports UO Student Workers’ unionization efforts and stands in solidarity with workers’ struggle to improve working conditions on campus. Additionally, UOUA condemns the ongoing anti-union and union busting behavior of the University of Oregon, including but not limited to: Threatening student workers’ jobs or rights to organize. Discouraging or banning discussion of UOSW’s unionization efforts during work time (when other non-work related discussions are permitted). Discouraging or banning students from card-signing in campus spaces and workplaces while off-the-clock. The removal of protected union posters and materials from work-neutral spaces. The discriminatory banning of union pins…

June 29, 2022

Balancing Work and Caregiving: A Best Practices Teach-In Summary

Throughout 2021-2022, United Academics and members from the CSWS Caregiver Campaign continued their collaborative efforts to push the University of Oregon administration to address issues of equity and inclusion for UO faculty struggling to balance the demands of caregiving while fulfilling their employment expectations. On April 27, we hosted a joint zoom teach-in with 43 attendees. The contents of this report lay out the scope of the issues but also provide hands-on practical strategies to address challenges that have existed long before the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a video recording of the Teach-In available on the CSWS website, as well…

September 13, 2021

COVID Planning: The Work Continues

Dear colleagues, Many of you have read the petition sent by CSWS recently to the Office of the Provost. UAUO fully agrees with the concerns Professors Escallón, McKinley, and Stephen articulated, and we are also in full support of their ask that “caregivers of unvaccinated children (children under 12) can continue to teach and attend meetings [remotely] at least until their family members receive the vaccine.” We’ve also heard from faculty whose health puts them at serious risk by being in-person, yet they cannot qualify for ADA accommodations. And for those of us who are able to come back to campus, we…

June 28, 2021

UAUO Protest Pollack-Pelzner Linfield University

Recently the President of Linfield University, Miles K. Davis, summarily fired Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a Shakespeare scholar who had held an endowed chair in the Department of English and had represented the faculty as a member of the Board of Trustees. According to the university administration, Pollack-Pelzner was terminated for reasons unrelated to his achievements as a teacher, researcher, or publishing scholar. Rather, the administration states that he was sacked because he had “engaged in conduct that is harmful to the university,” specifically that he had “violated instructions to preserve the attorney-client privilege” and that he had “circulated false statements…

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