Archives

February 16, 2018

Budget Cuts, Reorganization, and Frustration in COE

The College of Education (COE) has recently been presented with relatively significant budget cut targets by the Provost’s office.  The COE faculty are eager to find ways to maintain the excellence of our programs while also achieving the prescribed fiscal goals.  Unfortunately, we are not being given the information that would make such collaborative problem solving possible.  Frustration levels are high. In response to this situation, UA stewards in COE recently hosted a meeting of college faculty with UA Executive Director David Cecil.  25 faculty attended, and 28 others sent regrets along with lists of their concerns.  The concerns expressed…

February 15, 2018

Metrics and faculty governance

Last year, the members of the Board of Trustees expressed concern that we, as a campus, would not be able to measure the progress toward our goal of achieving excellence in all facets of faculty work unless we had a defined set of metrics to measure faculty performance. At the behest of the Trustees, the Provost’s Office drafted a plan to measure faculty research productivity. Over the course of the last several years, UA leadership has repeatedly pointed out well-cited problems associated with certain external metrics, particularly Academic Analytics, in evaluating individual faculty or entire departments (for further reading on…

February 15, 2018

Amicus brief supports sanctuary jurisdictions

The AAUP joined this week with other groups, including members of the California Community College System, in filing an amicus brief in support of a permanent injunction against a Trump administration executive order that sought to strip federal funding from “sanctuary jurisdictions.” The lawsuit resulting in the injunction was filed by the city of San Francisco. The AAUP’s interest in the case stems from the potential application of the executive order to colleges and universities. Such an extension would negatively impact colleges’ and universities’ ability to carry out their public mission and their interests in developing a diverse student body. Allowing the…

January 23, 2018

Save the Date for Healthcare: January 23rd!

This year, a broad coalition of Oregon Democrats, Republicans, health care advocates and providers, and healthcare companies passed a landmark Medicaid funding package. Unfortunately, some want to turn back this progress and have gathered signatures to repeal this critical funding. Currently, 95% of Oregonians, including all children, have health coverage. Voting Yes on Measure 101 protects healthcare for 350,000 Oregonians who rely on the Oregon Health Plan for their insurance, including 66,000 children. Measure 101 stipulates that hospitals, insurance companies, and other healthcare providers pay a small, temporary assessment which is then matched by the Federal government. This crucial funding…

January 3, 2018

Everyone Needs a Friend, Even Assistant Professors

Are you a first, second, or third year faculty member? Feeling a little unsure of how everything is supposed to work here at UO and in academia in general? Wish you had someone with more experience you could talk with? Many faculty feel this way, so we have developed a mentorship program to help facilitate informal faculty networking and support across campus. Connections with colleagues matched by interests and experiences can be useful in providing guidance on a range of professional issues and topics, including but not limited to: navigating work-life balance, publishing, teaching, nuances of department life, new community…

January 3, 2018

The Chickens Are Roosting, Do YOU Know Where Your 403(b) Is?

Since the first day faculty began organizing United Academics, one of the requests our postdoctoral faculty had was for the union to fix the “PERS problem.” Postdocs and PIs were paying into PERS accounts, but since most postdocs were not state employees for more than 5 years, few were ever vesting in their accounts. The money paid in was remaining in the PERS system, but never benefitted the faculty for whom it was paid. It was also difficult for PIs to compete for grants because they had to include retirement payments into their cost calculations when applying for grants. Scientists…

November 16, 2017

AAUP Chapter Responded to Postelection Violence

In the newest issue of Academe, two professors share how their AAUP chapter responded to violence on campus. “What can AAUP chapters do? We can watch for, notice, track, and respond to incidents of harassment or violence as they occur on our campuses. While individual students and their associations have some power to get the attention of administrators and outside authorities, their voices are amplified if we join them.” Read more here.

November 8, 2017

Operation Agua will provide safe water to Puerto Ricans

In response to the conditions in Puerto Rico—especially the water crisis—the AFT launched Operation Agua, a collaboration with Operation Blessing, AFSCME, the Hispanic Federation and the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico. Operation Agua’s initial goal is to purchase and distribute 100,000 individual water filtration systems for households and classrooms, and 50 large-capacity clean-water devices to a network of nonprofit organizations, union offices, schools, and other community-based groups to provide stable and reliable sources of safe water. A single $30 contribution provides an in-home purifier that requires no electricity and provides more than 10 gallons of safe water per day to a family. And $5,000 delivers a disinfectant generator that…

November 6, 2017

UA Members Raise over $4,000 for Puerto Rico!

At our membership meeting on October 23, UA members and family celebrated the ratification of our recent contract extension and engaged a host of other timely issues. At the recommendation of faculty with family in Puerto Rico, Professors Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel (Romance Languages), Alaí Reyes-Santos (Ethnic Studies), and Rocío Zambrana (Philosophy), we devoted space in our meeting (over dinner and drinks) to a silent auction and donations. Two prints from Puerto Rico’s beloved artist, Antonio Martorell, were auctioned alongside other donated items. Students from Professor Reyes-Santos’ class explained why they are raising money for a service project in Puerto Rico –…

October 27, 2017

Social Justice through Antiracist Writing Assessment

On Friday, October 27th, UO Composition will host “Social Justice through Antiracist Writing Assessment,” a symposium that will bring together instructors of writing-intensive courses and campus leaders in curricular reform to develop more inclusive pedagogies. The symposium features an antiracist assessment workshop led by Dr. Asao B. Inoue, whose social justice-focused work in Rhetoric and Composition addresses the disproportionate barriers to success for students of color, first-generation college students, and other students of diverse backgrounds.