8.16.23 Negotiations Continue this Thursday for Professor of Teaching

Dear Colleagues,

We received a lot of interest in the Professor of Teaching negotiations with the administration in response to last week’s bargaining update. We’re writing to remind you that those negotiations continue tomorrow Thursday August 17th at 10am.  If you would like to join the zoom session as an observer please send a message to info@uaous.org or reply to this email so we can get you the details.

If you missed our previous update, below is a summary of our negotiations over the Professor of Teaching category:

• The Faculty Senate has been working on a new Professor of Teaching category for a few years. Now we’re in the final stage with the administration to sort out how it will work in practice.
• The Professor of Teaching category is a new fixed term professorial category that will be separate from the Instructor category. It will include some percentage of assigned scholarly activity, service, and a majority of the FTE in instruction. We expect it to follow the promotional pathways of the other fixed-term professorial positions. 
• The establishment of any Professor of Teaching positions will depend on unit need.
• Professor of Teaching positions will roll out in two ways. First, units will have the opportunity to transition fixed-term faculty who have already been assigned both teaching and scholarly work into the Professor of Teaching category. Second, units may identify a need for a Professor of Teaching position and go through an internal or national open search. We proposed language that current faculty who meet minimum qualifications be given meaningful consideration for these positions. 

Our priority in these negotiations is to ensure the new category is implemented as fairly as possible. Additionally, we want to see faculty who transitioned into these positions receive some credit for service towards promotion and to protect existing salaries and appointment lengths for anyone who transitions into the new category.  You can find all of the proposals we have exchanged during the Professor of Teaching negotiations on our website (uaosu.org/bargaining), including the counter proposal we received from the administration on Monday and read our more detailed update on these negotiations.

In solidarity,

Marisa Chappell UAOSU Executive Vice President and Lead Negotiator