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On June 11 the English Department presented Provost Jayanth Banavar and Exec. Vice Provost Scott Pratt a comprehensive proposal for improved salary and working conditions for the career faculty in the Composition Program. This presentation arose after English devoted their entire April department meeting to deliver the same requests to the three Deans of the College of Arts & Sciences (Tykeson Dean of Arts and Sciences Andrew Marcus, Divisional Dean of Humanities Karen Ford, and Dean of Faculty Operations Bruce Blonigen). In both meetings, TTF and Career Faculty spoke together to address longstanding problems concerning salary, course load, contracts, and…

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…

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…

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…

AFT-OR Scholarship opportunities for members, their children and grandchildren: $1500 award for each scholarship. Please email [email protected] for more information and scholarship applications.

United Academics supports all victims of sexual, relationship, and gender-based violence and will continue to work to make our campus a safe and welcoming place for all students, faculty, and staff. We look forward to working with the administration to ensure that university policy and practices support our students, faculty, and staff throughout the investigation and resolution processes. We hope our university will resist implementing the very harmful options the OCR has made available to campuses and will do what they can to reverse this harmful guidance.

[Update: This summer, we sent an email to members of United Academics regarding our intent to enter into negotiations with UO administration. Below is an overview of were we are currently in that process.] Late last week, we were able to reach a tentative agreement with the administration for a two-year extension to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. We will be holding a ratification vote later this month. The agreement will only be finalized upon approval of a majority of voting members. This email contains a short summary of the agreement, followed by a longer explanation and a link to the…