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Greetings Colleagues, Today, November 19th, United Academics (UA) and representatives for the University of Oregon administration (UO) came back to the bargaining table. I’ll briefly update you all on what we’ve accomplished today, as well as sketch out the sub-committee meetings I spoke briefly about at our Fall General Membership Meeting. UO presented some changes to three articles. Article 9, Union Rights, establishes UA’s ability to meet with bargaining unit members. No major points of contention here, as we’re trying to hone in on the details that allow us access to our members and clarify how access protocols across areas of…

Hello UA members, I am the incoming United Academics Vice President for Diversity and Equity, and I am very excited to embark on projects and advocacy that can address political climate issues and structural inequities faculty face at the University of Oregon. I have been at the University of Oregon since 2000, and am a faculty member in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies (IRES).  I am a trained sociologist, however my work is highly interdisciplinary. My first book examined the convergence of two Clinton era federal policies, welfare and immigration reform, and the immigrant mobilization that ensued…

Dear all, We’ve heard from quite a few of you with questions and concerns about how reopening policies are being applied in your units, especially when it comes to teaching. We’re hoping the following information helps as you navigate through the rest of the term, though, as always, we are more than happy to hear from you individually. We can help you assess your situation and advocate accordingly with our colleagues in HR and OtP. I know there’s a much more pressing and specific variation on these concerns, and that’s the childcare situation on campus literally imploding this week, as…

This message contains important information for those with underlying health conditions, or family members with underlying health conditions; please read through to the end. A working group of UA Executive Council members have been meeting weekly with Executive Vice Provost Janet Woodruff-Borden and Chief Human Resource Officer Mark Schmelz to work through ongoing workplace and safety issues as the majority of faculty, staff, and students return to in-person business. As you may recall, we supported the CSWS petition to allow caregivers of children 12 and under, who cannot yet receive the vaccine, the option to teach remotely. Central administration will not honor this…

As the summer has progressed, it has become obvious that our hopes for an end to the pandemic will need to be delayed for the foreseeable future. While we support many of the steps the administration has taken, we have received communications from many faculty over the past few weeks expressing concern about the plan to have an in-person “return-to-normal” fall reopening at our residential campus, considering that many states, including Oregon, are seeing some of their highest rates of COVID infection during the pandemic. We believe faculty are right to be concerned. Last week, Christina Karns, Lynn Fujiwara, Dave…

No major walkouts or other shenanigans. In other words, we actually got down to business. With a healthy budget to lean on, UAUO (myself and President Chris Sinclair) collaborated with the President’s office to make the final push for the Public University Support Fund (PUSF; $900m) and the Oregon Opportunity Grants (OOG; $200m), among other things (see below), and we got what we asked for. It took several sessions and a lot of conversations, but we finally got through the Part-Time Faculty Health Care bill. Senate Bill 551 guarantees faculty who teach part-time across multiple institutions will now be covered…

When I arrived at the University of Oregon in 2009 I didn’t know what a Provost was. I had never been in a departmental meeting. I didn’t know that service was part of the job, or even what service entailed. I didn’t understand the concept of shared governance, or why a university has or needs a Senate.

The most interesting results of our recent survey on the process and prospect of breaking CAS into smaller schools came from the narrative comments. We have scheduled a meeting with President Schill to share both the concerns and hopes of our members regarding this potential, major re-organization of the university. We report on the major themes that arose in the narrative comments and the aggregated unit data of the responders. Concerns Less support for/value of Humanities and undervalued departments 35 Less collaboration/integration 28 More centralized admin/resources, less faculty voice 27 Moves away from traditional university/Liberal Arts structure and mission 16…