{"id":286,"date":"2021-02-25T11:37:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-25T16:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.sxu.edu\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/?p=286"},"modified":"2021-08-21T09:35:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T15:35:59","slug":"faculty-vote-on-faculty-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/archives\/286","title":{"rendered":"SXU Faculty Vote on Faculty Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 27, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

I feel called upon to comment on the proposed bylaws change under consideration for a faculty vote tomorrow (2\/28\/2021), since the proposed change affects the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) that I served on, at various points, for 12 of my 25 years at SXU.<\/p>\n

Many colleagues lack access to information about FAC and the significance of the proposed change. Many are unaware of the research and advocacy regularly performed by the committee, or the variety of collegial ways the committee has represented faculty concerns to the Administration for so many years. I wish I could convey just how urgent it is for a committee like FAC to exist at this point in our history.<\/p>\n

I want to reframe the dynamic that has developed between FAC and the Administration in recent years. It\u2019s become too adversarial\u2014born, in part, no doubt, by the very nature of the labor-management paradigm we\u2019ve operated under. For many years the paradigm was otherwise. Dare I call it collaborative? collegial? cooperative? We were pulling in the same direction. It sounds a bit Pollyanna-ish to say it: both sides sought agreements that best worked for the institution as a whole. Before I go too far in this direction, however, I should state that I remember past negotiations, and I need to be careful not to overly polish a patina of gauzy nostalgia over the “good old days.”  Things back then were essentially adversarial too. But there\u2019s adversarial and there\u2019s adversarial<\/em>. When the current administration closed the door more or less completely on back channel conversations and other strategic kinds of communications and maneuvers\u2014when every communication had to be processed through a lawyer and only in the context of formal meetings\u2014both sides withdrew and became hardened.<\/p>\n

We need to approach one another and soften some of the hardness. Faculty critics like me need to acknowledge that the Administration\u2014and I do believe this\u2014may have good intentions. Those intentions are to pursue a path that they believe in with conviction\u2014if not always with the best information or the soundest premises. Their agenda will best ensure viability for the future\u2014in their view. They are not selling us off for parts, or greedily exploiting crises for advantage. Perhaps we did have some<\/em> need of re-focusing, of cutting fat, of trimming budgets, of reallocating resources, of upgrading the physical plant, of branding or re-branding our mission. I can grant and respect all that. And I hope the Administration can grant and respect that those of us who have objected, have done so in the name of balance<\/em>. How much is too much cutting? too much rebranding? too much reallocating?<\/p>\n

To both sides: Have we given in to adversarial pressures to such an extent that the goal of balance<\/em> has been lost and neglected?<\/p>\n

Recommendations Toward Balance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Put simply: faculty need a specialized, dedicated group to develop the most salutary approaches to workload, conditions, and benefits. Whatever the committee is called, it needs many of the things FAC had long enjoyed: access to financial information; a seat at the table; allowances for the specialized nature of its work; a collection of colleagues with past knowledge and expertise; a representative structure; and accountability to its members.<\/p>\n

Put simply: faculty need an agreement, in writing, that is binding\u2014contractual. We need a CBA. The CBA has been described variously by individuals, depending on which side of the adversarial dynamic you found yourself on. It\u2019s either what has doomed or saved SXU. I would eulogize the CBA\u2014not, I hope, in the sense of a eulogy for something that has died, but rather in the old rhetorical sense of \u201cpraise.\u201d There is much to admire in the document, which has been a living, evolving kind of \u201corganism\u201d over the years\u2014pruning excess, growing new limbs when needed, holding onto basic essences, clarifying specific new conditions, codifying new possibilities, and on and on. As a document, the CBA has been responsive to changing circumstances, and it has provided a stable foundation on which to build a work-life at this institution. Though it\u2019s odd to say\u2014there was a kind of \u201celegance\u201d to this living, evolving document, in that, as a contract stipulating minimums<\/em> of compensation and basic conditions, it possessed a certain leanness of character. It set out a baseline for how we build our mission and programs and faculty and overall community.<\/p>\n

When the pandemic struck, the Faculty Affairs Committee had a lot more power than it currently has. We had a CBA that guaranteed faculty specific and relatively generous compensation for doing the kind of things we all wound up doing without extra compensation\u2014teaching online. Though the union could have insisted on the letter of the contract being followed\u2014and demanded that faculty be compensated according to the provisions of the CBA, the committee never once alluded to or \u201cthreatened\u201d (if we\u2019re still locked into the adversarial mode) to require the University to adhere to the online compensation provisions of the then-current CBA. We willingly (and without being asked) proposed to forgo those and other provisions. And the institution survived, as faculty, staff, and administration all worked with flexibility and resolve to find a workable way in a crisis.<\/p>\n

I raise this episode simply as an example of how FAC has worked with the Administration\u2014in this case, yes, but really, on multiple crises over the years where either the contract had to be opened to recalibrate promised provisions or to negotiate continuing, anemic provisions in the context of prolonged fiscal precarity. Through it all, the dedicated, specialized, and entrusted committee worked with the Administration as an equal partner\u2014with a shared goal of finding solutions that were balanced, fair, pragmatic, and sustainable.<\/p>\n

Given the challenges we have all experienced in the past year\u2014and given the trust the faculty have demonstrated though sustained, flexible, and effective performance of teaching and other duties\u2014now is not the time to weaken faculty voice and shared governance through a dimunition of the Faculty Affairs Committee. Rather, the committee needs to preserve its role, as stipulated in the bylaws long before the formation of the SXU Faculty Union, \u201cto serve as the Faculty\u2019s designated representative for negotiations with the Administration for salary, fringe benefits, and working conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 27, 2021 I feel called upon to comment on the proposed bylaws change under consideration for a faculty vote tomorrow (2\/28\/2021), since the proposed change affects the Faculty Affairs Committee (FAC) that I served on, at various points, for 12 of my 25 years at SXU. Many colleagues lack access to information about FAC … Continue reading SXU Faculty Vote on Faculty Voice<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-at-sxu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonadonna.org\/sites\/wordpress\/bonadonna\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}