The Getting to Tenure and the Professionals Workshop: Compensation During the Pandemic meetings have been rescheduled.

Getting to Tenure has been rescheduled for Thursday, April 8th 10:30-12pm.

Click HERE to register!

Compensation During the Pandemic has been rescheduled for Friday, March 12th 11:30-1pm.

Click HERE to register!

It’s time for our UUP Chapter Elections again!

Ballots will be going out in the mail to all UUP members by March 12. You will have until April 26 to return them to UUP headquarters — please be sure to follow the directions to ensure that your vote will count! Following is a list of those who have put their names forward as candidates for the various chapter officer positions, and/or as delegates.

Please note that there are a several positions which will appear blank on your printed ballot, and for which individuals have put themselves forward as write-in candidates, who are marked as such on the list.

President and Delegate:

• Beth E. Wilson (A)

It has been my privilege to lead our Chapter for the past three terms, since I was first elected President in 2015. It has been a pleasure, consulting in this work with our talented, insightful chapter officers and delegates as we worked together to address the needs of all our members I hope to continue this work, gaining ground as we attend to the many perspectives—academic and professional, tenured and contingent, full-time and part-time—that make up our bargaining unit. I ask for your vote, so that we can maintain this ongoing conversation and continue our important collective work.

Vice President for Academics and Delegate:

• César Barros (A) [Write-in candidate] 

Since 2012, I have been a full-time faculty at SUNY New Paltz. I am an immigrant. I teach Spanish and the cultures and politics of Latin America, the Caribbean, and their diasporas in the United States. Outside of my job here, I work with undocumented immigrant communities in their struggle for the right to live in peace, facilitating popular education workshops, and organizing and participating in legal clinics, accompaniment efforts, and mutual aid initiatives. I believe public higher education is a right and that it should be available to all. I am running to be your delegate and Vice President for Academics. I see our union as the opportunity to come together as workers, no matter our job description, in order to demand the working conditions we deserve. I don’t believe in top-down unionism, but in rank and file collective thinking and action. I am a member of UUP Member Action Coalition. UUP is the largest higher education union in the country and only we, together, can make it work as the powerful organized labor force it can be. As VPA, I want to facilitate spaces to build this power and work with all of you to make sure you see the union is your union. We all, professionals and academics of every rank and title, need to work together. With Rendesia Scott, candidate for Vice President for Professionals, we are running as a team. Together—with our union, with you—we will fight not only to resist the austerity that is increasing our workloads, increasing labor precarization, and deepening longstanding racial and gender inequities, but also to demand the working conditions we deserve as we labor for the betterment of our community. 

Vice President for Professionals and Delegate:

• Rendesia Scott  (P) [Write-in candidate]   

I work as the Director of the Center of Business Advising within the School of Business and I have been with New Paltz for slightly over 22 years.  I attended Graduate School at New Paltz while working with the High School Equivalency Program (residential campus GED program).  Once I earned my M.S. in Education Administration, I moved onto Vassar College to work there as a Resident Director for some time.  I eventually made my way back to SUNY New Paltz as an Educational Opportunity Program Advisor.

I was hired within the School of Business to be their Senior Academic Advisor in 2005.  While there, my hard work and integrity spoke for itself to my supervisor at the time, Dr. Hadi Salavitabar, as he eventually implemented a Center for Business Advising within the School of Business, thus promoting me from Senior Advisor to the Director of this Center. 

I have served on numerous campus committees and as the Faculty Advisor to several student organizations.  I presently serve as a Task Member on the Scholar’s Mentorship Program (SMP).  I was instrumental in the implementation of the Harry K. Bonsu Scholarship (originally under SMP) and the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc Scholarship. 

I advocated to create the first student of color student organization within the School of Business, B.A.S.C. – the Business Association for Students of Color.   I presently serve as their Faculty Advisor.

I consider myself to be professional, detail oriented, organized, and yet still human!  I am task Driven when needed, but true motivation is to see the result of great implementations whether I am in the forefront OR the background.

My goal is to remain honest and act with integrity.  My primary concern is ethical behavior and doing my best to ensure the playing field is fair to those who have not received the same benefits of others.

I am a Mother of two beautiful children and the Wife to an awesome husband…who is also a SUNY New Paltz alum!  I am active in my church, community, and sorority.  

I have been a member of United University Professions (UUP) since I was hired here.  I volunteered to be a dept rep for Professionals once in the School of Business and was recently elected one of New Paltz’ chapter Professional Delegates.

Both Cesar Barros Arteaga (VP of Academics candidate) and I took on the challenge to this new role within the union at the call of our colleague, Brian Obach.  We are all excited to work with the existing team of E-Board Members with the mentorship of the previous members in this role.

I am hopeful you will consider my candidacy for this position.   

Secretary:

• Gowri Parameswaran  (A) 

Treasurer:

• Koop, Douglas  (A)

 I am a candidate for both Treasurer and Academic Delegate.  As an 18+ year adjunct in the Physics, Mathematics and Engineering departments, I am gratefully eligible for the lifetime SUNY health benefits that were negotiated by the UUP, for which I like to thank you by serving in these positions for a third term.  I ask for your vote.

Grievance Officer:

• Amanda Merritt (P) [Write-in candidate]  

I appreciate the chance to continue to represent our members as Grievance Officer for a second term, and I hope I have your write-in vote. 

Much of a Grievance Officer’s job is to help resolve situations in which our members are trying to cope with questionable treatment on the job. (If this is a current concern of yours, please be in touch with any chapter officer asap.) Sometimes the behavior the member is dealing with isn’t actually grievable or illegal, but that doesn’t diminish the resulting unhappiness and stress. Informal mediation and strategizing can help, and I am honored to have been trusted to support our members as they negotiate their personal minefields. 

In the background, I continue to work with our excellent Labor Relations Specialist to get our contingent colleagues the health insurance coverage promised in our collective bargaining agreement. This is no time to be without health insurance, and we will challenge our campus administration and SUNY until our colleagues get the benefits they’re entitled to. 

As we are all painfully aware, the stress level of our jobs jumped dramatically in March 2020. I hope to be able to continue to support our colleagues as we all plod through our current mess and get to happier times. I thank you for your write-in vote. 

Membership Development Officer:

• Edward T. Felton  (P)

I look forward to continuing as MDO. Member participation is the key to our union’s strength. I’ll work with colleagues to further activate our Executive Committee, develop our Department Representative network, and provide opportunities for all members to contribute to our collective voice.

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The application process for the current round Individual Development Awards — a benefit negotiated as part of our statewide Agreement — is open!! New Paltz has been allocated $44,816 through the statewide Joint Labor-Management Committee (JLMC).

For more information, please consult the IDA program guidelines here, and use the fillable PDF application form found here.

Applications are being accepted in electronic/PDF format only. To submit your application and required materials, you must be logged into your SUNY New Paltz email account. Then click here: IDA Submission. Complete the requested information and include:

• the application
• brief project description
• brief CV
• any supporting documents (such as a conference acceptance letter, brochure, or announcement).

IDA funds are intended to assist eligible employees to develop their full professional potential and to prepare for advancement. Funding may be provided to enhance teaching, research capabilities, professional knowledge and skills. We have set a deadline of March 31, 2021 for receipt of completed applications.

The activity period for the current academic year runs from July 2, 2020 to July 1, 2021. All projects/proposals must take place within that time frame. The maximum grant for the IDA program is $1,000, although given the number of applications in recent years, most grants have been less than that amount. Part-timers are encouraged to apply, as 15% of the pool of funding available is initially earmarked for them; any funds left unused by part-time employee applications are swept into the remaining pool for full-timers.

Our local Joint Labor-Management Committee, which reviews the applications and decides on the funding priorities and amounts awarded, will include:

For UUP:

For the Administration:

• Anneliese Kniffen, HRDI
• James Burns, Student Accounts
• Devon Duhaney, Teaching and Learning

Dear Colleagues:

UUP is not a union that sits on the sidelines. We are champions for our students, our union, and we are pushing solutions and programs to better New York. For these reasons and more, I am asking you to join your colleagues and invite your students, to advocate for SUNY opportunity programs, access, affordability, and the resources needed to support our SUNY, our students and our communities.

SUNY opportunity programs have been an economic and educational ladder for thousands. We must continue to promote and advocate for these programs as well as new ones such as MEOP, and fight for the necessary revenue to fund them. Please join us on March 11th for our SUNY Opportunity Virtual Advocacy Day! The day will begin with a plenary where we will be joined by students, educators and elected officials. We will then take the remainder of the day to do the work of meeting with state legislators and advocating. You can register today here. Advocacy registration will close at 5PM on March 4.

All who register for this important event will receive an invitation for a March 10th virtual advocacy training. There will be two training session offered (12PM and 7PM).

Please share this message with your students and your colleagues. All who wish to participate must register using the above link.

Thank you for all the work you have been doing over these past months. Our union is stronger with your voice.

In Solidarity,

Fred Kowal

Dear President Christian,

I am writing to present to you the UUP petition that we circulated last week. In the span of less than three days, we received 100 signatures from members; beyond that, we received a number of open-ended comments, which are appended (anonymized) here.

We understand that the Administration has committed itself to maintaining the application process for the forthcoming cycle of DSI awards; however, under the current extraordinary circumstances, even the prospect of a more egalitarian across-the-board distribution stirred significant support among our members. 

Our emergency chapter meeting last Wednesday, announced at the last minute, drew an audience of 90. In that meeting, we heard from a wide range of members, reflecting every sector of our bargaining unit–professional and academic faculty, adjunct lecturers and those with tenure or continuing appointment. Scanning the various departments represented by the petition signatories, as well as the content of the open-ended comments, you will find a similar distribution.

At the meeting, while there were some who maintained their preference for maintaining the current system of DSI application, an overwhelming majority embraced the seemingly small concession of not having to submit ourselves to the application/review process, in the interests of recognizing the universal impact of the pandemic on all of us scrambling to keep up with our professional obligations. Ironically, those with the greatest burden to carry–among them the caregivers of young children, for whom juggling work and family has been so taxing, as pointed out in our Caregivers Letter last semester–will be those with the least time or energy to spare to complete even the streamlined application that you have produced. 

One thing that has been driven home to me recently, by several workshops related to Black Lives Matter@School, is the absolute necessity of listening. This means attending to the perspectives of others, opening up one’s assumptions and expectations to allow the space for fruitful dialogue enables us to find meaningful solutions that will benefit everyone, in the long run. It is in that spirit that we present the attached petition and collective testimony of our members, in hopes that our issues, challenges, and concerns might enter into any future consideration you may have on this subject and enhancing discussions we may have in labor-management meetings (and in other venues) moving forward.

Respectfully,

Beth E Wilson

President

UUP-New Paltz Chapter

bwilson@uupmail.@uupadmin

Last week, Faculty Senate leadership brought a proposal to the President and Provost, asking to suspend the 2020 DSI process in favor of an across-the-board, flat-rate distribution. The proposal was a compassionate and thoughtful response to recognize an overburdened faculty and staff during extraordinary times. Additionally, the proposal allowed for the incorporation of both 2020 and 2021 Faculty Annual Reports into the 2021 DSI cycle.

Despite gathering supportive responses to this proposal from not only the UUP chapter leadership, but also groups of POC and women faculty, and a number of department chairs as well, the Administration decided to press forward with the DSI application process regardless. We have decided to petition the Administration to reconsider this decision. You will find the online petition form here.

We are holding an emergency chapter meeting to discuss this situation with our members, at 5:45 pm on Wednesday, February 24 via Zoom. We would like to receive your input on this proposal and will be able to provide additional information regarding specific monetary impacts and other considerations related to it.

Here is the Zoom invitation for the meeting:

You are invited to a Zoom meeting. When: Feb 24, 2021 05:45 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Register in advance for this meeting: Zoom Registration Link Here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.