- We welcomed some new board members who officially start July 1 but are attending as guests to learn the ropes. We also noted two committee appointments: Ranjini Jha has agreed to continue her role on the Pension & Benefits Committee for another term, and Dorothy Hadfield is interim chair of the Lecturers Committee.
- Reports from the Complementary Teaching Assessment Project Team and Course Evaluation Project Team are going to Senate on May 19. You can read them in the Senate agenda as soon as they’re posted (they should be up any minute now).. The first part of the Senate meeting is open to the public, but since guests can’t speak during the meeting, we encourage you to make sure our faculty senators know how you feel about the recommendations in these reports.
- We got a preview of some of the options for health benefits plan changes that are being considered by the Holistic Benefits Working Group. The proposed options will eventually be public in a Pension & Benefits Committee agenda, at which point members can read and send feedback to FAUW and/or the faculty representatives on the Pension & Benefits Committee.
- We are finishing assembling our negotiating team. We will be polling all our members about negotiation priorities over the next term, so start thinking about what you’d like to see. Section 10 of the Memorandum of Agreement has all the details about negotiations.
- We heard that administrators are starting to reach out to members regarding reduced workload to retirement, early retirement, and unpaid leaves of absence. If you are considering any of these options, we strongly encourage you to talk to our AF&T team first so they can help you identify the most appropriate solution for your situation (which could be an alternate to those being offered). This way, you can be as informed as possible when you speak to your Chair/Dean.
- We tasked a few board members with looking at sponsored research agreements and implications for Policy 73 – Intellectual Property.
- We are monitoring the creation of three new working groups (announced in a May 7 email from President Hamdullahpur) that are handling plans for reopening campus. We are sorting out out how they overlap with existing decision-making bodies and where FAUW fits into these discussions. We are asking for a FAUW touchpoint between these new bodies and the recommendations going to Senate for final approval.
- We reviewed the questions for our member survey about preparing for teaching in spring and fall. We’re hoping to get a sense of the teaching support members are receiving for spring and how involved members have been in fall decision making. This will really help us in our discussions with the administration. The survey is open until noon on Wednesday.
- Bryan Tolson has asked our Equity Committee to make recommendations to the FAUW Board by June 15 regarding considerations for faculty facing increased family care responsibilities during this pandemic.
- We continue to discuss faculty workloads and the importance of equitable distribution (or redistribution) of workloads during this time.
- We submitted significant concerns about the University’s revised accommodation guidelines. If you need accommodations, contact the FAUW Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee; it has been assisting members while the development of an appropriate policy continues.
- We added one Board meeting in each of July and August (normally the Board doesn’t meet in those months) since there’s likely to be more going on this summer than usual.
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