For the past several weeks, there has obviously been a lot of attention on Wright State and their 21-day strike, the second-longest strike at a higher education institution in the United States. We want to send a big congratulations to the Wright State faculty and, equally important, the Wright State students for standing together and ending the strike on terms that were fair to all.
As AAUP-UC enters contract negotiations (the first session is Friday), the Chapter has received many queries about Wright State, their strike, and its impact on UC’s negotiations. The most common question—is a faculty strike possible at UC? The answer: we hope not.
What the UC faculty know, but the administration often forgets, is that the faculty work to serve our students and our community. They are why we do what we do; they are why we are faculty. We hate to even contemplate anything that could hinder the education and research mission of the university, especially anything that could potentially hurt our students. Unfortunately, as happened at Wright State, sometimes faculty are forced to do desperate things to protect students’ education and the overall mission of a public research university. When the administration abandons its role, the faculty must become the guardians of higher education.
In order to avoid the worst-case scenario, we must start preparing for it and organizing.
Here are a few things you can do:
- Plan to attend college-level focus group sessions (which will be announced soon) to provide follow-up feedback to the bargaining survey that was sent out in December. Thank you to all who completed this initial survey–we had a higher response rate than any other bargaining survey in recent memory. If you were not able to complete it, these planned focus group sessions will be an excellent opportunity to have your voice heard.
- Attend the Performance Based Budgeting Teach-In on February 26th at 12:30 p.m. at UC Blue Ash, 154 Muntz Hall. The survey results reflect a tremendous amount of concern about PBB and its effect on the education and research mission of UC, and this Teach-In will provide you important information about PBB. > Click HERE to RSVP to the teach in.
- Attend the Faculty Senate meeting on March 14th from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., 400 A&B Tangeman University Center (TUC). President Pinto and Provost Nelson are scheduled for the first hour to provide an overview of the Strategic Sizing Initiative. That should be interesting.
Thank you for your time. We look forward to seeing you at one of these important events.
Chris Campagna, Chair, AAUP-UC Associates Council
Cassie Fetters, Vice-Chair, AAUP-UC Associates Council