A colleague in one of the sciences offers some concerns for consideration. I am posting them here. Many people have said they cannot attend the meeting today and still want to ask substantive questions about the contract.
I will add one more question of my own. After more than a year, is it necessary to rush this contract through by this week in time for the Board of Trustees meeting next week? If people still have questions, at this point, what is the rush?
My colleague's questions--note the last paragraph.
1) Clinical Faculty. We are told that this only applies to the folks in Pharmacy, but this new title is NOT Clinical Pharmacy Professional. Several colleges include faculty who are involved in clinical education. Nursing, OT, Education, Social Work etc. all include clinical education, but this new category of clinical faculty who have all of the requirements of teaching faculty and no tenure was developed based only on the needs of Pharmacy. The current version of the contract also includes a reference to "external clinical faculty" but the document does not define this term.
2) Clinical, Teaching and Research Faculty. These titles are also used in the document defining different types of graduate faculty in the policy of the graduate school. So will we now have faculty who are research faculty according to the graduate school but teaching faculty according to the contract?? The folks who wrote this contract seem unaware of the new graduate faculty designations.
3) In many accredited professional programs accreditation requires that instructors only teach within areas that they have documented expertise. This leads to a need to have team teaching in some courses. According to the current contract, you get an extra CUE for team teaching if you work in the nursing department, but not in any other department. This seems very odd.
4) We have clarified that faculty get an .5 CUEs for working with MASTERs level thesis students so that this is not confused with the required undergraduate thesis. But I did not see any provision to provide extra CEUs for classes that will now include an undergraduate thesis. Several composition courses include extra CEUs because of the added work of grading several student papers. Are we not expecting that the requirement for an undergraduate thesis will create more work?
5) Considering the rate at which quality faculty are leaving and the rate at which the administration is denying tenure, I think allowing them to force us to teach well beyond 24 CUEs will encourage CSU to hire fewer faculty and to overwork those of us who stay. The rates for overload will certainly make this a cost effective alternative to hiring.
6) The requirements for a terminal degree in OT were changed so that only three specific degrees will be accepted. This change was NOT marked in red. This makes me wonder what else was changed without notice. '
I could go on and on. But in summary, I don't believe that this contract provides the support that CSU faculty need to promote the educational goals of this University.
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