Find the latest issue of the Bullhorn, our official Chapter newsletter, at the link below. Included in this issue are news stories covering a recent visit to the Chapter by state officers, the Constitutional Convention debate, labor-management notes, and information on upcoming events and workshops!! Don’t miss out — have a look today!!
UUP statewide President Fred Kowal will be visiting our campus on Thursday, September 21 to discuss issues, challenges and concerns facing us today. We invite you to attend one of the meetings on the schedule below. Please come with your questions and concerns—Fred wants to hear from the rank-and-file, so this is your chance to let him know your issues, and to engage in a conversation about what we as a union can do!!
The meetings are organized by various member constituencies; if your schedule conflicts with the times available, please feel free to let us know you’d like to attend a different session.
The morning/afternoon sessions will take place in the 1907 Room, in the basement of Old Main, and light refreshments will be served. The late afternoon session for professionals will be in the Terrace. Don’t forget to RSVP so we know how many members to expect!!
Morning sessions (1907 Room, Old Main)
9:00 – 10:00 Contingents (Adjuncts/Lecturers)
10:30 – 11:30 Tenured/Tenure-track Academics
Afternoon sessions (1907 Room, Old Main)
1:30 – 2:30 Tenured/Tenure-track Academics
3:00 – 4:00 Contingents (Adjuncts/Lecturers)
Early evening session (The Terrace)
4:30 – 6:00 Professionals
Please RSVP to Mary Thompson, the UUP Chapter Assistant (thompsom@newpaltz.edu or call x2770), at your earliest convenience, to let us know which session you will be attending.
We hope to see many of you there!!
Support our Faculty!!
Join us on May Day — the original worker’s holiday — to demand better treatment of our faculty!!
In response to the recent mass non-renewal of our term adjuncts, the UUP New Paltz Chapter Executive Committee recently voted to endorse the attached Statement in Solidarity with Adjunct Faculty. We are soliciting other groups and individuals who would like to endorse the statement as well–get in touch with me if you’d like to sign on, or have a community organization that would like to do so!!
We would like as many people as possible to come to the rally (even if you can only do so for a few minutes!), in order to deliver this message to our Administration.
April 2017
The SUNY New Paltz administration recently issued non-renewal letters to 165 adjunct faculty, notifying them they may not have a job in the Fall. The reason cited for this action is that a $4 million budget shortfall in the current academic year necessitates the elimination of as many adjunct-taught sections as possible. Even if many of the non-renewed individuals are invited to return, the impact of this action is so negative that we find it necessary to object strenuously. Adjunct faculty are the most poorly paid and most precariously employed people on our campus, but without whom the basic educational mission of the College could not be achieved.
Impacts
The adjuncts who received a certified letter from the College – some of whom have been teaching essential courses here for decades – have been put on an emotional (and financial) roller coaster, one which is antithetical to a supportive, positive environment for teaching and learning. Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions!
Students are now confronted with a Fall schedule of classes where no instructor is listed for many courses. Many students are understandably reluctant to register for courses if they have no idea who will be teaching them. This will cause adjunct-taught sections to be systematically under-enrolled, increasing the likelihood that fewer adjuncts will be called back in the Fall.
The Administration’s approach forces the question: Is their aim to increase course load for full-time lecturers and tenure track faculty, to cover classes previously taught by adjuncts? Such an outcome will directly impact the time and energy faculty have to support their students. In the case of tenure-track faculty it will compromise their research, which has long been touted by the College as a key strength in improving the overall quality of education we provide.
Demands
We call upon the SUNY New Paltz Administration to:
– Respect and value the dignity of the labor and contributions made by our part-time contingent faculty in disciplines across the campus
– Increase their job security by offering progressively longer-term appointments, and making a more enduring commitment to those who have devoted themselves to their students and departments over time.
– Pay adjunct faculty a wage commensurate with their training and experience. To pay $3,200 for a 15-week, 3-credit course to someone who has taught at SUNY New Paltz for many years – including some holding a PhD in their field – is exploitative and insulting. UUP and others have long called for a minimum of $5K per course, which is comparable to the rate being paid full-time, teaching-only lecturers.
– Make every effort to demand that the State allocate sufficient resources to SUNY, to sustain a high quality, accessible system of public higher education and to make clear in the College’s budget the priority of teaching and learning on our campus.
We publicly endorse this statement of solidarity, and invite others to join us as we call for equity, justice, and recognition of the dignity of teaching as a central function at SUNY New Paltz.
UUP-New Paltz Chapter Executive Board
You should receive a ballot for our 2017 Chapter election in the mail at your home address sometime during the week of March 15-22. The list below represents those whose names will appear on the ballot, and others who have indicated an interest to run as write-in candidates for various positions. If no candidate statement is provided, none was provided by the candidate.
Ballots are due back to UUP Central no later than April 12, in order to be counted for the election.
It has been my great pleasure and privilege to serve as your UUP Chapter President for the past two years. In that time, I have endeavored to energize and activate our chapter, and to provide responsive representation for all the members of our bargaining unit on both an individual basis, and in collective venues such as labor-management meetings with the administration. This first term has presented a number of challenges (and a learning curve) in the wide array of issues and procedures facing any chapter president; I that I’ve found my feet in the process, and I would love to have the opportunity to continue in this role with the knowledge base and the experience I’ve developed over the last two years. I would like to thank all the dedicated chapter officers, delegates, and volunteers who have contributed to the successes we’ve had, and I do hope we will all continue pulling together to improve the quality of our working lives collectively, IN UNION. In order to continue playing my part in this effort, I ask for your vote in this chapter election.
I have been the Assistant Director, Accounting Services for the New Paltz Campus since 2011. Prior to coming to New Paltz, I held accounting and internal audit positions in Westchester County Government and several private sector employers in Westchester County. I have been a professional Accountant since 2005. I am a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA).
Prior to my career in accounting, I was employed as an executive secretary for over 18 years. I am a graduate of Berkeley College, Intensive Secretarial Diploma, Mercy College, B.S. Business Administration, and University of Phoenix, MBA, Accounting.
I have been working with Beth Wilson and the New Paltz Executive Committee taking minutes at Executive Committee meetings and Labor Management meetings since the Fall 2016 semester. I look forward to continuing to serve as your Chapter Secretary.
Douglas Koop
Adjunct Lecturer
Physics and Engineering
Active member
So why am I again soliciting your vote for Treasurer and Delegate of the New Paltz Chapter of the UUP? Because I’m grateful to former UUP officers who struggled to provide adjuncts and their families with medical benefits upon reaching the teaching threshold of two courses each semester. Thank you! For this benefit, I will gladly serve another two-year term as Treasurer and Delegate. I need your vote! Thanks.
I am a candidate for Grievance Officer, a position to which I was first elected two years ago. Prior to that, I served as Chapter President from 2011 to 2015, and before that for six years as Vice President for Academics. If I am reelected Grievance Officer, I will continue to provide information, support and vigorous representation to all members, whether they are Professionals or Academics, full-timers or adjuncts. Most of my work is of a sensitive and confidential nature. Members who have sought my assistance know that I try to be there for them 24/7. I typically assemble a team of chapter leaders to help individual members who may have issues with their supervisors, with colleagues, the College administration or the campus police. In addition to myself, such a team usually consists of our seasoned NYSUT Labor Relations Specialist, Bill Capowski, and either the Vice President for Academics or Professionals. In addition to my work with UUP and four decades of teaching at the College, I am a trained and certified mediator with the Ulster County Dispute Resolution Center. I regularly work as an unpaid volunteer mediator in small claims courts, as well as in divorce cases involving custody and visitation. If elected for another term as your Grievance Officer, I would look forward to working with members to defend their union rights under the Agreement between UUP and NYS (the “contract’) and to make sure they are treated fairly in their workplace here at the College.
I have had the great privilege of being an active participant in higher education at SUNY New Paltz, first as a student in the Art Department for 2 years, and now, and for the last three years, as an adjunct lecturer in Art, and Art History departments. I have seen that well-resourced, fairly compensated teaching staff, valued for their work bring novel engagements into the class room. They teach not just from books, but from the world, and they invite that larger world into the teaching studio. They strive to deliver their knowledge and passion for learning to students not just as a transmission of facts but as tutelage in making in ways that outstrip any account of value indexed by pay packages, Instructors given the dignity of fair wages and decent work space seek to fit the dignity they are rightly owed. I have also seen, and have sometimes felt, the exhaustion that fells instructors burdened by heavy class-loads, unfair remuneration for the work done, unsuitable, ill-equipped office spaces. As more universities float their student bodies on contingent labor, this unfair treatment of cannot and should not continue. I will advocate for fair treatment of contingent staff, and that they become more seamlessly woven into the academic community at SUNY New Paltz. I will advocate for fair pay packages, and that adjunct voices be leveraged more powerfully not just within the union, but across the local campus community, and across the SUNY system at large.
I am seeking reelection as Academic Delegate. For the past twelve years, I have served the union as delegate and voting member of the UUP New Paltz chapter’s Executive Committee (see also my nominee statement for the position of Grievance Officer). Union work is hardly glamorous. It is often tedious and time-consuming. It can also be rewarding in a non-material way, especially when successfully advocating for our overworked and underpaid members. Public employee unions around the country are under siege. Academic unions in particular are widely criticized as a root cause of our economic ills. Unions fought long and hard to secure tenure, permanent employment for professionals, superior health insurance and pension plans—all of which are now in danger of being eliminated by well-organized and generously-funded groups around the country. If elected, I will continue to fight vigorously for improved working conditions and to preserve academic freedom.
As an Academic Delegate, I will strongly advocate for SUNY New Paltz and public higher education more generally. To the best of my ability, I will encourage the investment of resources necessary to support outstanding academic programs without excessive cost to students; and to cultivate an environment that fosters independent thought, creativity, free expression, and exposure to diverse perspectives. I am inclined to promote the substantial intrinsic value of an undergraduate liberal arts education as a means of elucidating relationships between various modes of human thought and the structure, achievements, and problems of our modern, global society. I believe such an emphasis is urgently needed to counter prevalent views of higher education as primarily being a source of vocational training and/or a path towards career advancement.
My primary reason for seeking to be a delegate is to advocate for our members on such issues as fair and equitable wages, transparency, labor/management coordination, and women employees’ concerns. If elected, this will be my first experience serving as a union delegate and I hope to learn more about the concerns and issues that exist on our campus. I have been a member of UUP for 12 years and served as the UUP representative for the Library for the last 3 years. I worked previously at a private college with no union and so I know that an active union and a strong faculty governance are critical. It is a time of challenges for higher education and I will advocate for a fair and effective working environment to meet those challenges.
I am running for re-election as an academic delegate for the New Paltz Chapter of UUP. As a (hard) scientist on the Executive Committee at the New Paltz Chapter, I represent the views of the scientific community. I currently serve on the state-wide Women’s Rights & Concerns Committee representing the views of women educators and also each spring advocate for educators at SUNY colleges and universities with Albany legislators. I would like to continue to represent you.
Before I leave this planet, I want to know that I helped to make the world a more humane and compassionate place. Unions are the life-blood of a civil and civically-minded society. Equity is absolutely necessary in a democracy, and UNIONS offer that opportunity.
I am seeking my eighth term as professional delegate. I represent UUP in the region’s union movement, as delegate and trustee of the Central Labor Council, and as delegate and vice president of the Area Labor Federation. I contribute articles to the Bullhorn on labor issues. As co-chair of the statewide Women’s Rights and Concerns Committee, I organize activities on gender equality, academic freedom, combatting sexual violence, and family leave. My solidarity activities include marching in the NYC Labor Day parade, speaking at local labor rallies, walking picket lines with CWA and IBEW Verizon strikers, and participating in the post-inauguration Women’s March. I attended the statewide AFL-CIO convention, where we voted on policies for the coming year. I take part in labor walks and rallies for labor-supported candidates, and the Labor Federation’s candidate interviews. I am proud to serve as your delegate and will continue to work for your rights and to build UUP.
I am asking for your vote for my second term as a delegate for our professional faculty members. On our campus, professional faculty continue to shoulder significant responsibility, often unrecognized, demonstrating the highest standards of care for our students. Thanks to our chapter leadership, we are not forgotten, but we need to be vigilant and stand against attempts to conflate our working conditions with those of other valued unions on campus. Educating our new members about the terms of our contract, for example, continues to be crucial.
I’ve been active in our Teacher Education Task Force, working with others to protect the integrity of our programs as we face an upcoming teacher shortage after years of under-enrollment. UUP has been a buffer between our teacher candidates and those who exploit them by charging outrageous sums for questionable evaluations. I would be proud to continue that work.
I’m interrupting my own commercial here to urge you to call your US Congressperson and ask for votes of NO against HR 785 (National Right to Work, i.e. no unions) and HR 610 (Vouchers for Public Education).
Thank you! I hope I have earned your vote.
