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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…

Dear Bargaining Unit Members, I am incredibly honored and humbled to be given the opportunity to serve as your President. I promise you I don’t take this lightly and will work my ass off to do what I can do. Besides, I still suffer from the “gotta work twice as hard and expect half as much” motto that I’ve known from too early. We’ve got a bargaining year, re-opening, and the business-as-usual challenges of equitable pay and attacks on academic freedom. Working conditions, especially for those tasked with caring for others, are not as accommodating as they need to be….

United Academics Strong Voice Award Nomination  We, the undersigned, are nominating our colleagues Elizabeth Peterson, Kate Thornhill, and Ann Shaffer for the United Academics Strong Voice Award. While many union members showed extraordinary leadership and advocacy this past year, we believe that our librarian colleagues responded to this crisis with fierce resilience and sustained support throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.  Like many career faculty across campus during the 2020 spring and summer terms, 15 librarians were at risk of being demoted to 0.1 FTE due to the administration’s perceived budget shortfalls. Additionally, five librarians who were up for promotion were put…

Unit-level Policymaking Workshop Join us Tuesday, May 25 for a themed Lunch with your Local: Unit-level Policymaking. We will discuss process and best practices for creating and revising unit-level policies, with plenty of time for Q&A. Zoom in from noon-1pm.   College for All AAUP Oregon will be hosting a meeting on May 20th from 4 pm – 5 pm PT to make concrete plans for legislative outreach, particularly to our Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden. We need as many faculty, staff, students, and community members taking part as possible to make sure our voices are heard loud and…

Dear Colleague, With the recent victory of the pay reduction plan being rescinded, and given that the financial outlook for state appropriations looks good (though still uncertain), the Executive Council of United Academics has agreed with the university to pause bargaining until this summer. At that point we’ll have a better idea of enrollment and know state appropriation numbers. It will also give us an opportunity to partner with the university in securing those financial resources from the state and recruiting a large, diverse student body. We hope this, in turn, will allow the administration more of a sense of…