Category Archives: Our Values

January 2019 WMU-AAUP leadership transition

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Photo of outgoing WMU-AAUP President Lisa Minnick


Leadership Transitions + Lame-Duck Legislation:
The More Things Change… | 

Letter to the faculty
from WMU-AAUP President Lisa Minnick (2013-18) |

December 7, 2018 |

 

Dear colleagues,

Last week when I started thinking about what I would say in this message, I was thinking about how much has changed over the last six years, particularly since December 11, 2012, when Gov. Rick Snyder signed Michigan’s so-called “right to work” (RTW) bills into law. The legislation had been introduced during the lame-duck session that year, amid massive protests outside the Capitol building in Lansing. It passed along party lines without public hearings by a majority party that knew it would not have the votes when the new legislature convened in January 2013.

What I had been thinking last week that I would write about was how far Michigan has come since that terrible, blustery day in Lansing in December 2012, when I protested alongside faculty colleagues and members of WMU’s AFSCME and AFT locals, along with thousands of other people from all across the state. It seemed surreal that this kind of legislation could even be on the table in Michigan, let alone that it could pass. But it did, and here we are.

There will be no turning the clock back on the effects of RTW in Michigan, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision earlier this year in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, which effectively nationalized RTW laws. Still, there are all kinds of other ways to improve the labor climate at the state level, provided that there is the political will to make it happen.

We have not seen much of that kind of political will in Lansing in recent years. Many of the values we share as the faculty of a public university, and as union members, have not been priorities for the majority party. Under their legislative and executive leadership, we have seen higher education funding decline and anti-labor legislation proliferate. In addition to RTW, we have witnessed the repeal of Michigan’s prevailing wage laws and ongoing attacks on the rights and benefits of K-12 educators.

But last month, Michigan voters elected an unapologetically pro-labor governor, Gretchen Whitmer. That means starting next month, while we still won’t have a labor-friendly legislature, Lansing will start to feel a little less unfriendly. In last month’s election, the labor-unfriendly folks lost five seats – and their supermajority – in the state Senate and another five seats in the state House. Should they pass anti-union legislation or bills that would harm public higher education in the next session, we can count on Gov. Whitmer to veto it.

There are still any number of challenges ahead of us, I was thinking I would write, on campus and beyond, but for the first time almost a decade, the balance of political power in Michigan feels like it may be moving in a pro-labor, pro-education direction. With significant majorities of voters saying yes last month to the ballot initiatives to end gerrymandering and make voting and registration easier and more accessible, there is good reason for even more optimism in the next few years.

That’s what I was thinking about last week. And it’s all still true. But now that the Michigan legislature’s lame-duck session is underway, things are getting a little more complicated.

As in North Carolina in 2016 and more recently in Wisconsin, Michigan is now also the scene of what appear to be anti-democratic power grabs by a party whose legislative dominance was reduced (although not reversed) and who lost control of the offices of governor, attorney general, and secretary of state when Michigan voters repudiated their candidates last month. They are now using bills introduced in the lame-duck session to try to limit the powers of those offices and also to weaken the anti-gerrymandering and voter-access initiatives, both of which voters favored overwhelmingly last month. Additionally, bills that would harm workers by cutting back planned minimum wage increases and paid sick leave protections have already passed both houses of the legislature and await the outgoing governor’s signature.

Several anti-union bills are also in the lame-duck mix, including Senate Bill 1260, which would require public-sector labor unions (like ours) to hold a recertification election every two years. It appears that the goal of SB 1260 is to try to neutralize union participation in electoral politics. The WMU-AAUP does not fund political candidates or ballot initiatives, so we are not a target for the bill’s sponsors, but that wouldn’t matter if this bill becomes law, because we would see the same increased demands on our resources as any other public-sector union, which would make it harder for us to do the work we are here to do: defend the contract and protect faculty rights.

When we came back to school after the holidays in January 2013, we had no way to know how the RTW laws would affect our chapter or our professional lives as university faculty and union members. Our contract was set to expire on September 5, 2014, after which date Western Michigan University would become a RTW campus.

We know now that we have not only survived RTW but have built significantly on the strength of our chapter and increased faculty engagement in union activities over the past six years. That doesn’t mean RTW wasn’t a serious blow to us after 40 years as an agency shop. It absolutely was. But more than anything, the continuing health and success of our chapter is a tribute to the more than 800 dues-paying members of the WMU-AAUP bargaining unit. Many of you took up the difficult but essential work of old-fashioned, on-the-ground, one-on-one union organizing and helped to plan and roll out our year-long contract campaign for the 2014 negotiation cycle. You’re the reason we’re still here, stronger than ever.

What we learned is that our model worked. Chapters in other states are following it now. They need to because the Janus v. AFSCME decision means that a lot of them are now where we were in 2013. Since RTW, we have had to direct more of our time and more of our chapter resources into organizing, outreach, and retention, no question. But we knew that was what it would take. We made a plan, we got ourselves trained, and most important, we collaborated. In small groups and large, within and across departments and colleges, on campus and in the community, the faculty showed up, had the conversations, and did the work. We did it with the understanding that in this new world of RTW, that work must be ongoing. And it has been.

After the election last month, I felt for the first time in six years a noticeable shift in the political energy in this state and the real possibility that positive change is in the offing. These lame-duck shenanigans, along with word of another anti-union case that is likely to end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court next year, have been an unwelcome reminder of how vigilant we are still going to have to be. In a country where for most of its history, citizens have mostly been able to count on peaceful transitions of power, these egregious attempted power grabs in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and now Michigan suggest that we may no longer be able to take for granted that the will of the electorate is going to be honored. Additionally, there is still well-funded, well-organized opposition to unions in this country and no chance that they will just give up and stop trying to ban collective action in the workplace and silence the voices of working people. If anything, they are emboldened by a string of recent victories in court and in state legislatures.

So, rather than a farewell message in which I say Yes! We have done all right! We are going to be OK! Things are going to get better! – although I still think all that is true – instead I will sign off my last message to the faculty as WMU-AAUP president with, perhaps appropriately, all things considered, a call to action:

First, we are going to need to be able to count on your continuing vigilance, your help to keep building strength and solidarity, and most of all, your visible and vocal engagement in the union. That means answering the call when you are needed, showing your allegiance proudly and unapologetically, and finding ways to support the organization that fit your schedule, your interests, and your skills. The WMU-AAUP has good work for everyone, a lot of it inspiring and even fun and all of it meaningful. Please plan to do more of it in 2019. (Bonus: It counts as professional service for tenure and promotion.)

Second, and this one’s more urgent: Please call, email, tweet at, post on their Facebook pages, and/or otherwise contact your state legislators and tell them to vote NO on these union-busting, anti-worker, anti-democratic lame-duck bills. Since unfortunately all are likely to pass both houses (at this writing, some already have), please also contact Gov. Rick Snyder and urge him to do the right thing by vetoing these terrible bills. At this point, he is going to be the only one who can stop any of this.

(Scroll down or click here for links to more information about the bills and contact information for our elected officials.)

While we’re on the subject of electoral politics, I will say that while I am generally opposed on principle to term limits, I am happy to make an exception in the case of our chapter leadership. Identifying and developing emerging leaders, and then standing back so that they can lead, are essential elements for ensuring the health and evolution of an organization like ours. I am excited about the deep bench of incoming and upcoming chapter leaders and proud of the work we have been doing over the past six years to build it.

In that spirit, I am also very much looking forward to handing over the reins (to coin a phrase) to WMU-AAUP President-elect Carol Weideman when she takes office officially on January 1, 2019. Thanks to Carol, VP-elect Mark St. Martin, and contract officers Robert Trenary and Natalio Ohanna, who will both continue in their positions into the new year, the WMU-AAUP will be in excellent hands going forward. I am excited about the new directions Carol and her team will take us, and I know I can count on all of you to make sure she knows you have her back the way so many of you have always had mine.

It has been a delight to work with Carol, Robert, and Natalio, and with chapter secretary Tim Michael and treasurer Betsy Aller. It has also been a privilege to serve alongside our many other fine officers over the years, all of whom deserve to be recognized by name (and I apologize for not doing that here). The same goes for the dedicated members of the WMU-AAUP Executive Committee, our college-level reps, whose labor on the faculty’s behalf is tireless and indispensable. That is also true of the WMU-AAUP Association Council, our department reps, who are some of the savviest, most engaged union activists on our campus. What a joy it has been to work with you. And speaking of people with whom it is a joy to work, our chapter staff, Susan Esman and Lori Maguire, belong at the top of that list. Their loyalty to the faculty, institutional memory, and just straight-up awesomeness are invaluable to the success of the chapter. They have made my job unimaginably easier in more ways than I can count and probably in more ways than I even realize.

This is not the easiest job in the world and can feel damn near impossible at times. But it also comes with some incredible rewards (alas, not of the remunerative kind). What stands out the most for me is the opportunities I’ve had to meet and work with colleagues in every college and nearly every academic unit, many of whose paths I might never have crossed were it not for this job. I never stop being blown away by the innovative, important, and brilliant work you are doing as researchers, scholars, artists, and teachers; how much you give of yourselves to make sure our students thrive; how quietly, humbly, invisibly, and selflessly you do much of your work as professors; and what extraordinarily wise, thoughtful, generous, and (best of all) incredibly kind human beings you are. I am proud to work alongside you as your faculty colleague, and it has been an honor beyond anything I can express in words to have served as your WMU-AAUP president. Thank you for trusting me with this responsibility and this privilege.

Wishing everyone a joyous and restorative holiday season and a happy, healthy new year.

With gratitude and in solidarity,
Lisa

—

Lisa C. Minnick
President, WMU-AAUP

Guide to lame-duck legislation and contact info for elected officials:

  • Other worker-unfriendly bills (SB 1171 and 1175) that would significantly reduce the previously approved minimum wage increase and paid sick leave requirements:

Contact info for elected officials:

  • State house, 60th District (City of Kalamazoo, part of Kalamazoo Township and part of Portage): Rep. Jon Hoadley (517-373-1785). Rep. Hoadley has already voted against bills that would gut the previously approved minimum wage increase and paid sick-leave provisions and told me last week that his vote on SB 1260 is “definitely NO.” He has been a consistent fighter for higher education and labor rights, so please take a minute to give him a call to thank him if you are so inclined.
  • State house, 61st District (City of Portage, Townships of Oshtemo, Prairie Ronde, Schoolcraft and Texas): Rep. Brandt Iden (517-373-1774). Rep. Iden has already voted in favor of reducing the minimum wage increase and paid sick-leave requirements approved earlier this year. I don’t know that there is much hope here, but he definitely needs to hear from his constituents who are union members before SB 1260 goes to the House for a vote.
  • Gov. Rick Snyder: (517) 373-3400. When you call, please leave your name and your city, and state your request that the governor VETO Senate Bill 1260 and all lame-duck bills whose passage would harm working people, public education, and the democratic process in Michigan.

—

WMU-AAUP Chapter
814 Oakland Drive
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008
(269) 345-0151

Web: http://wmuaaup.org

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Photo of protestors outside the Michigan state capitol building

Protestors outside Michigan state capitol on December 11, 2012. (Photo: Paul Sancya, AP)

Photo of protestors outside Michigan state Capitol, December 11, 2012.

Protestors outside Michigan state capitol on December 11, 2012. (Photo: CNN)

Ohanna named interim contract administrator

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photo of Dr. Natalio Ohanna

Dr. Natalio Ohanna

Dr. Natalio Ohanna, Department of Spanish, has been named interim contract administrator for the WMU-AAUP, effective August 1, 2018.

In addition to his interim appointment, the WMU-AAUP Executive Committee has also voted to recommend Natalio to complete the two-year term that runs though August 31, 2019. The Association Council will meet to discuss this recommendation and hold a confirmation vote at its first meeting of the 2018-19 academic year on September 21.

Natalio joins the leadership team with a strong background in union activism and distinguished service on the WMU-AAUP Association Council.

Natalio writes:

“I feel honored to be selected for this job, because I recognize its significance, the obligations involved, as well as the tremendous value of advocating for our labor rights and for just and healthy work relations. I am aware that the colleagues selected for such service carry the weight of great responsibility, as they are defenders of many of the fundamental values of our WMU community, such as academic freedom, shared governance, ethical conduct, fairness, inclusiveness, and respect for others. Above all, I welcome this nomination as a passionate advocate for fairness and justice in our workplace.”

Please join us in welcoming Natalio to the WMU-AAUP leadership team. We look forward to working with him and extend our thanks to him for his willingness to serve in this challenging but essential role.

AC reps Wallace and Hennlich to be honored April 6

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Dr. Luchara Wallace (Special Education and Literacy Studies) and Dr. Andrew Hennlich (Frostic School of Art), will be recognized at the WMU-AAUP spring chapter meeting on April 6 as 2017-18 Outstanding Association Council Representatives.

As Association Council reps, Luchara and Andrew serve not only their department faculty but the entire WMU-AAUP bargaining unit, routinely going far beyond what is asked or expected of them in their elected roles. Their efforts strengthen the chapter and improve the quality of life on campus for all faculty.

photo of Dr. Luchara Wallace

 

Dr Luchara Wallace
Special Education and Literacy Studies

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Andrew Hennlich
Frostic School of Art

 

 

The WMU-AAUP Chapter is fortunate to have an exceptional group of faculty serving on the Association Council, with representation from every academic unit and a deep bench of seasoned and emerging union leaders, including Luchara and Andrew. They are part of a core group of our most active AC reps who can always be counted on to join us on the front lines when it comes to defending the contract, fighting to preserve and strengthen academic freedom and shared governance rights, and working to maintain and enhance the quality of our professional lives. This work takes resourcefulness, stamina, courage, and above all a calling to serve others. And they do most of it when nobody’s looking, all of it without extra compensation or release time, and usually with only a fraction of the appreciation and recognition they deserve.

Congratulations, Luchara and Andrew! Congratulations and thank you!

#StrengthInSolidarity

WMU-AAUP spring chapter meeting is Friday, April 6, at 1:30 p.m. in 157 Bernhard. 

WMU-AAUP resolution honors Dr. Howard Bunsis

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At the WMU-AAUP chapter meeting on November 10, 2017, the faculty voted unanimously in favor of a resolution to honor Dr. Howard Bunsis, professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University, for his eight years of service as chair of the national AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress.

During his tenure as AAUP-CBC chair (2009-17), Howard was an active and supportive friend to the WMU-AAUP Chapter and a tireless advocate for collective bargaining rights, higher education as a public good, and the empowerment of faculty nationwide.

Full text of the resolution appears below the image.

Image of resolution document.

Resolution of Appreciation Honoring Dr. Howard Bunsis

WHEREAS Dr. Howard Bunsis has dedicated himself to serving college and university faculty, students, and the cause of higher education as a public good;

WHEREAS he has demonstrated his passion for and commitment to empowerment through education, both as a professor and in his work to educate faculty nationwide about AAUP ideals as well as training us in the practical skills of understanding university finances;

WHEREAS he has fought tirelessly and fearlessly to preserve and strengthen collective bargaining rights, academic freedom, and the faculty’s right to participate in shared governance;

WHEREAS he has stood up consistently and relentlessly to advocate for faculty, individually and collectively, inspiring many in the process to take more active roles ourselves;

WHEREAS he has been instrumental to organizing and building new chapters, strengthening existing chapters, and identifying, supporting, and mentoring emerging leaders;

WHEREAS during his eight years of service as chair of the AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress, he has been an extraordinary and actively supportive friend to the WMU-AAUP Chapter, instrumental to our growth in recent years and to our strength today;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Western Michigan University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, authorized by a unanimous vote of its members:

Recognizes and honors Howard’s wisdom, generosity, and fierceness in advocating on behalf of the WMU-AAUP Chapter as well as on behalf of the profession more widely; and

Expresses its deepest appreciation, respect, and gratitude for Howard’s contributions, his tenacity, and his friendship to faculty everywhere and to our chapter in particular; and

With our congratulations on the completion of his eight years of service as chair of the AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress, we offer this resolution to acknowledge at least in this small way the great debt of gratitude we owe him. And we wish for him going forward the lighter workload that he has clearly earned and deserves, the satisfaction of his positive impact on the future of the profession and on thousands of lives, and finally, more time to spend on other things that matter to him and especially with the people who matter most to him: his family.

Passed unanimously by the members of the WMU-AAUP Chapter
on November 10, 2017.

 

Remarks to the Board of Trustees, September 20, 2017

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by Lisa C. Minnick, WMU-AAUP President |

It’s been a year since the Presidential Search Advisory Committee began the work that resulted in the hiring of President Montgomery, whose inauguration we celebrated last week. President Montgomery, I am pleased to have this opportunity to welcome you officially on behalf of the WMU-AAUP, whose membership comprises the 900 members of the Board-appointed faculty in its entirety.

Last fall, the Presidential Search Advisory Committee met with faculty, staff, students, alumni, administrators, and community members to listen to their perspectives on the opportunities and challenges faced by Western Michigan University and, by extension, its next president. We asked them to describe the characteristics they thought the next president would need in order to succeed at making the most of the opportunities and addressing the challenges. We used what they told us to draft the position announcement and description of the characteristics and qualifications the university community wanted in its next president.

Despite the diverse needs and interests of these constituencies, I was surprised to hear the same themes repeatedly: WMU has the raw materials and is poised for greatness, but we need a leader who can help us get there. We need a leader who can help us make the most of our resources, the strongest and most valuable of which is of course our people. We need a leader who can help us build on our strengths, develop where we have been languishing, and realize our potential. We will all be on board for this journey, they said, but we need a leader who has the vision to help us figure out who we are, who we aspire to be, how to get there, and – critically – how to tell our story so the rest of the world will see what we see.

The repetition of these themes in conversation after conversation was striking. It made our charge simultaneously easier – because everyone wants the same thing! hooray! – and more difficult: How do we find someone with the skills, talent, experience, and energy to lead us in the colossal project we are setting out for ourselves? Is there actually a real person out there who can meet these standards? Can we find someone who can lead us effectively in the difficult work of crafting and articulating a collective vision for the university? Someone who can lead us to achieve our shared aspirations? Someone who can help us tell our story?

Obviously the ending of that particular story is already well known. We are very fortunate to have found a new president who is clearly more than prepared to do all those things. This is an exciting time for the university and for all of us who are part the enterprise.

Now that we are a few weeks into the academic year, and the inaugural festivities and the flurry and chaos of the beginning of the academic year are behind us, it seems like a good time to pause for a moment and think about the challenge of telling our story.

The phrase “tell our story” appears repeatedly in the notes I kept from the conversation sessions last fall and in my notes from meetings of the search committee itself. At the time, and again in reviewing these notes over the past few weeks, the idea of “telling our story” is one of the themes that stands out most for me.

I’m an English professor, so I could probably get away with saying that stories are my business. But I’m not a creative writer or a literature professor, so by that definition, stories are not actually my business. Still, as I was preparing Monday morning to teach my class in the history of the English language, I was reminded again not only that this course is built from a series of stories that I use to help students figure out why the language is the way it is, how it got to be that way, and what causes language to change over time, but really that all my classes are built around stories. I use stories to help make sense of things like how language variation is distributed, how and why people attach value to different ways of speaking, and what a phoneme is and why that definition can be so hard to make sense of. So, I’m going to claim it: Teaching and doing research in linguistics is storytelling. Stories are therefore my business.

But they’re everyone else’s business too. My faculty colleagues are all storytellers as well. This is true across disciplines. We all learn from the stories of the researchers, scholars, artists, and teachers who came before us. We build on these stories – and sometimes we change them: that’s discovery – and we share them with our students and colleagues. This is how knowledge is transmitted and continually generated and regenerated. It is a remarkable thing, this work we professors are engaged in.

Of course you can see where this is going. Storytelling is central not only to our academic mission but to our culture, and to every culture. Stories are how we go about figuring out the world – to the extent that any of us ever really figures it out – and telling stories is how we try to explain the world to others even as they use stories to figure it out for themselves and try to explain it to us. And when I say “we,” I don’t just mean professors. I mean human beings.

But even while my creative writing colleagues and students in the English department inspire me with their talent for creating compelling, original stories, we have to recognize that no story is made up out of whole cloth. All stories are ultimately built on and made of other stories.

This is all a long way of saying that the story of Western Michigan University belongs to all of us: students, faculty, staff, administration, alumni, members of the Board, retired faculty and staff colleagues, members of the community, and everyone else who cares about this institution. That means to tell the story of Western Michigan University is to tell our collective story. And that is something that cannot be done – at least, it can’t be done right – without a deliberate, intentional effort to listen to the stories of all us. Because that is the story.

What everyone told us last fall during the search suggests that we have been at a loss for a way to define ourselves and a way to tell the story of what makes Western Michigan University the special place we all know it is. I submit that much of this loss is a consequence of an unwillingness to listen. When the stories of people, of constituencies, and of academic disciplines are told by people who themselves have not listened to the people whose stories these rightly are, assumptions are made, people may be written off, and harmful decisions are sometimes made.

There is no possibility of a collective, collaborative enterprise achieving its full potential under those circumstances.

So I hope that with the new administration, we can start over. I hope we can do a better job of listening to one another, of respecting people enough to listen to them and to believe them when they tell their own stories.

On what may seem like but is not an unrelated note, I will add that I appreciate that the Board has ratified the new contract. I have mixed feelings about the contract although nothing but respect for my bargaining team, whose meticulous preparation and scrupulously professional conduct at the bargaining table throughout a long and grueling negotiation cycle sets an excellent example for how academic collective bargaining at Western Michigan University ought to be conducted.

I am concerned about the changes to our healthcare plan, including what are likely to be for many of my colleagues unsustainable increases to their out of pocket costs beginning in January. While I appreciate that the cost-of-living increases in the new contract are likely to keep pace with inflation, which would be better of course if we were not losing so much ground on healthcare, I am also concerned about the loss of benefits at the Sindecuse Health Center and Unified Clinics. Added to the already worrisome changes to our insurance costs, this is a substantial additional hit. As always, these changes will disproportionately affect colleagues on the lower end of the salary scale, but new this time is that those who are the sickest will pay the most. In sum, these changes are going to make people’s lives harder.

I wish that before we got to this point their stories had been sought out and listened to by the people who control the resources on this campus, and that is you all, ladies and gentlemen of the board, along with your administrative agents.

Prior to President Montgomery’s arrival, there was a tendency to dismiss or try to ignore stories that did not square with the administration’s official line. That kind of thing can damage any institution, and it has. In the spirit of a fresh start with our new president, I am asking all of you to join me in trying a different approach this time, one in which the stories of all the people who do the work of this institution are sought out, listened to, valued, and taken to heart.

Thank you for listening.

Tentative agreement info, absentee ballots, and important dates

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Letter to the faculty from WMU-AAUP President Lisa Minnick |

September 12, 2017 |

Dear colleagues:

There is a lot to share with you today, so I thank you in advance for bearing with me.

1. Chapter meeting and ratification vote. As you review the tentative agreement in advance of the ratification vote next week, please be sure to put the following events in your calendar:

  • Friday, September 15: WMU-AAUP chapter meeting to discuss the tentative agreement. (3:30-5 p.m. in 157 Bernhard)
  • Tuesday, September 19: Faculty vote on ratification. (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in 204 Bernhard)
  • Tuesday, September 19: Members of our bargaining team will be on hand all day to answer your questions about the TA, should you have additional questions after the chapter meeting this Friday or are not able to attend the meeting. (8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in 205 Bernhard, adjacent to the room where the ratification vote is being held.)

It’s important to have as much faculty participation as possible for the chapter meeting and especially for the ratification vote. The union is the faculty, and a high turnout for both events, regardless of where you stand on the issues, will remind the administration that the faculty is engaged and well informed. It also helps to build on our collective strength, a project we can never stop working on. #StrengthInSolidarity is more than just a hashtag.

All bargaining-unit members with questions are also invited to contact our team, chapter officers, and/or your Exec Committee representative (that’s your college-level rep) at any time. We want every colleague to have as much information as possible about what this contract will look like for you if it is approved. You can contact us directly (my email address is linked here) or send your questions to the chapter staff to be directed to the appropriate respondent(s).

2. Timeline for ratification vote. We realize that this is a tight timeline to go from TA reached on September 5, publication of the details on September 8, chapter meeting on September 15, and ratification vote on September 19. The faculty has big decisions to make, and you need and deserve time to give it serious thought, get your questions answered, and do your due diligence. I think we would all prefer to have more time for this important part of the process. However, the Board of Trustees has scheduled their vote on the TA for Wednesday, September 20. This is 10 days earlier than in 2014, and it means that we need to move more quickly than we might have liked.

This leaves us with a lot for faculty to digest in the next seven days before our ratification vote. That is why it’s critical for you to attend the chapter meeting on Friday if it is humanly possible for you to make it. We also invite you to stop by Montague House this week to meet with officers, give us a call (345-0151), or send us an email if you want to talk about the TA. And again, the bargaining team will be available all day on Tuesday the 19th to meet with you and answer questions.

3. Absentee ballots. If you need an absentee ballot, please contact the WMU-AAUP office ASAP at 345-0151 or via email. The staff will provide you with your ballot and instructions for submission. All absentee ballots must be returned electronically or received in hard copy to the WMU-AAUP no later than close of business on Tuesday, September 19.

4. Eligibility to vote. Please note that only dues-paying members are eligible to vote. If you need to activate your membership, please contact the WMU-AAUP office at 345-0151or via email as soon as possible to ensure your eligibility.

5. Switching gears: Tenure and promotion workshop rescheduled for Thursday, September 21. Because the faculty’s regular business continues no matter how many other things are going on, so does the business of the WMU-AAUP. However, sometimes we do have to move some things around. The tenure and promotion workshop scheduled for this Thursday, September 14, has been rescheduled for next Thursday, September 21, 1-3 p.m. in 204 Bernhard. We apologize for the conflict this causes for those who celebrate Rosh Hashanah. (I am one such celebrant, and I would like for us to do better. However, with the ratification vote taking up so much of our calendar, having to work around the officers’ teaching schedules, and the tenure and promotion deadline coming up so quickly, this is looking like the best we can do this time, much to our consternation. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the chapter.)

Additional sessions are scheduled for Wednesday, September 20, in 204 Bernhard, and Tuesday, September 26, in 205 Bernhard, both 1-3 p.m.

Many thanks for your patience with this long message. Hoping to see you all on Friday for the chapter meeting and again on Tuesday for the ratification vote. As I wrote last Friday, we still have a lot to talk about and a lot of work left to do, and we need everyone in on this conversation.

#StrengthInSolidarity
#WMUAAUP2017
#WeAreWorthIt

In solidarity,
Lisa

—

Lisa C. Minnick |
President, WMU-AAUP |
Associate Professor of English |
and Gender & Women’s Studies |
Western Michigan University |
814 Oakland Drive |
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008 |
(269) 345-0151

Details of the tentative agreement and notice of chapter meeting Sept 15

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 Letter to the faculty from WMU-AAUP President Lisa Minnick |

September 8, 2017 |

Dear colleagues,

The document containing the details of the tentative agreement reached late Tuesday night is now available and can be accessed here. It includes information for each of the contract articles where changes would be made to our Agreement if the TA is ratified by the faculty and by the Board of Trustees.

Please read everything carefully in preparation for the following events, for which your participation is needed:

1. Friday, September 15: WMU-AAUP chapter meeting to discuss the tentative agreement. (3:30-5 p.m. in 157 Bernhard)

2. Tuesday, September 19: Faculty vote on ratification. (Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in 204 Bernhard)

If you need an absentee ballot, please contact the WMU-AAUP office ASAP during regular business hours at 345-0151 or via email.

Please note that only dues-paying members are eligible to vote. If you need to activate your membership, please contact the WMU-AAUP office at 345-0151 or via email as soon as possible to ensure your eligibility.

Again, many thanks to our team. Cynthia, Whitney, Bruce, Jeremy, and Mike gave up the better part of the past year to prepare for and engage in negotiations on our behalf, and they are owed a huge debt of gratitude. They faced challenging and difficult circumstances at the table right up to the end on Tuesday night but never allowed that to affect the professionalism with which they conducted themselves in these negotiations.

Thank you also to everyone who helped with the project of supporting the team in their work. This includes the WMU-AAUP Executive Committee, who despite the fact that most are on academic-year contracts worked all summer in their role as advisors to the team, and members of the WMU-AAUP Association Council, who along with more faculty colleagues than I can name stepped up to help organize rallies, boost our signal on social media, provide wise counsel, lend specialized expertise, make signs, send messages of support, take us out for drinks when that was what was needed, and otherwise do their part for the collective good. Thank you. We appreciate all of you more than you can imagine.

Special thanks are owed especially to the WMU-AAUP administrative staff, Susan E. and Lori M., whose tireless efforts and unshakeable loyalty to the faculty go mostly unsung most of the time but are essential to the effective operations of the chapter, not only during negotiation cycles but always. Please consider sending them a quick note of appreciation if you are so inclined.

But this is not over yet. The faculty still has to review and discuss the TA, and we still have to vote on whether to ratify it. Many of you will have questions. We have a lot to talk about and a lot of work left to do. We are going to need all of you as we go forward.

I hope to see you at the chapter meeting on September 15, and I hope I can count on you to participate in our ratification vote on September 19. (The Board of Trustees will hold their ratification vote on September 20.)

Thank you again for your ongoing commitment to the collective wellbeing of the faculty and to the continuing success and intellectual growth of this university and the community we all serve. As I wrote in my Labor Day note on the WMU-AAUP blog, we are — along with our staff colleagues — the heart, the soul, and the conscience of Western Michigan University. I am proud to serve and to work alongside so many dedicated and talented teachers, researchers, scholars, and artists.

Imagine what we could all achieve if taking care of the people who do the work of the university was among its highest priorities.

#StrengthInSolidarity
#WMUAAUP2017
#WeAreWorthIt

In solidarity,
Lisa

—

Lisa C. Minnick
President, WMU-AAUP
Associate Professor of English
and Gender & Women’s Studies
Western Michigan University
814 Oakland Drive
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008
(269) 345-0151

 

Contract Negotiations and “Work to Rule,” by Allison Hart-Young

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From: Allison Hart-Young |
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 2:18 p.m. |
To: Regena Nelson, Chair, Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Studies
Cc: Ming Li, Dean, College of Education and Human Development I
Cc: Susan Stapleton, Interim Provost and VP for Academic Affairs |
Subject: Work to Rule Labor Action |

Dear Regena,

I am writing to inform you that I will be among the tenured faculty members who will participate fully in the WMU AAUP’s “work to rule” action scheduled for Wednesday, 6 September 2017 beginning at 12:01am, should a tentative agreement is not met in the final round of negotiations prior to the expiration of the current contract.

I will absolutely continue to fulfill all of my contractually mandated responsibilities. As you are well aware, my commitment to students is my primary concern. Thus, I will be mindful of my teaching duties so that students will not be impacted by my participation in the action. As I understand it, “work to rule” is not a strike, stoppage, or slow down. It is a legal action that helps to convey the idea that WMU expects its faculty (and other employees) to do significant uncompensated work on a regular basis. It is particularly concerning because this institution has expressly denied its responsibility to fairness and equity for its employees. As a tenured, full professor, I feel it critically important to shoulder this burden so that my untenured and part-time colleagues, as well as staff members, do not have to compensate for this action.

I have taught at WMU for 21 years. It is my home and I have committed my entire professional life to this institution and its students. As you know, I have served over 4,200 students in my career – I care very much for these students and the programs that serve them. In this regard, I feel that the best way I can advocate for the continued success of this institution is to stand with my colleagues across campus in solidarity with this action.

Please let me know if you have any concerns. I will be more than happy to discuss them with you.

Sincerely,
Allison Hart-Young, Ph.D.

Secondary Education Program Unit Coordinator
Teaching, Learning, and Educational Studies
College of Education and Human Development
Western Michigan University
4121 Sangren Hall
1903 W Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008

 

 

Work to Rule Labor Action, by Gwen Athene Tarbox

Posted on by

From: Gwen Athene Tarbox |
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 10:41 a.m. |
To: Nicolas Witschi, Chair, Department of English |
Cc: Carla Korestsky, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences I
Cc: Susan Stapleton, Interim Provost and VP for Academic Affairs |
Subject: Work to Rule Labor Action |

Dear Nic:

The Agreement between the WMU-AAUP and the WMU administration is set to expire at tonight at midnight. If the teams are unable to arrive at a tentative agreement, I will follow the directive of the WMU-AAUP Executive Committee by participating in a legal labor action called “work to rule,” withdrawing “from all work outside our contract and letters of appointment, effective at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday, September 6, 2017” (“Sept 6 Work to Rule Notice to WMU-AAUP Faculty,” WMU-AAUP Blog, 8/31/17). Work to rule actions include all voluntary labor that a faculty member provides to the institution. As Dr. Lisa Minnick, President of the WMU-AAUP points out, without the uncompensated labor of the faculty, “it would be impossible for the institution to honor its commitments and its mission.” Work to rule is designed to demonstrate the value of the faculty to the institution.

As you know, over the years, I have provided significant uncompensated labor to the Department of English. For instance, I have worked with many students over the summers, even though I serve on a 9-month appointment. This voluntary labor has helped ensure that our PhD students complete their degrees in a timely manner and enjoy success on the academic job market, earning tenure track positions at California State University-Northridge, Shippensburg University, West Chester University, and the University of Texas-Dallas, among others. I have also met in the summer to help undergraduates with their successful applications to graduate programs at institutions such as Harvard University, the University of Michigan, The Ohio State University, and Syracuse University.

Just as I have willingly undertaken uncompensated labor to help my students, I also appreciate the importance of honoring my commitments to my faculty colleagues in our efforts to receive a fair contract. Currently, WMU faculty members earn lower salaries than faculty members at many of the schools included on WMU’s Peer Institution list. WMU faculty members deserve respect for our contractual labor, not to mention our uncompensated labor. Hopefully, this legal, peaceful work to rule action will underscore our positive contributions to the institution.

Of course, I will be actively teaching this week and starting on the administrative tasks that we agreed I would handle as part of my contractual workload, and I will make sure that my undergraduate students and my doctoral advisees continue to receive timely instruction and advice. I am proud to be a part of our department and our college, and I know that we are at the beginning of what will be a productive and engaging academic year. I am also proud to be a member of our union, and I am optimistic that we will have a mutually beneficial contract in place soon.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions regarding the work to rule process. I have attached a paper copy of this letter, with my electronic signature, as well.

Best wishes,
Gwen

Dr. Gwen Athene Tarbox
Professor
Department of English
Western Michigan University
1903 W. Michigan Ave.
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331

Website: http://gatarbox.wixsite.com/home

Work to Rule statement, by Chris Nagle

Posted on by

From: Christopher Nagle |
Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 8:12 a.m. |
To: Nicolas Witschi, Chair, Department of English |
Cc: Carla Korestsky, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences I
Cc: Susan Stapleton, Interim Provost and VP for Academic Affairs |
Subject: Work to Rule statement |

Dear Nic,

I write this letter to inform you that I will be one of those tenured faculty members who will participate fully in the WMU AAUP’s “work to rule” action, beginning on Wed., 9/6/17 at 12:01am, if a tentative agreement is not met in the final round of negotiations prior to the expiration of our current contract.

I hasten to add that I will continue to fulfill all of my contractually mandated responsibilities, and will be especially mindful of my duties to my students, who should not be impacted by this commitment. My understanding is that “work to rule” is completely different from a strike, stoppage, or slowdown, and that it is legal, permissible, and in my judgment, ethically necessary in an environment where an institution such as WMU continues to expect its employees to do significant uncompensated work on a regular basis–especially when that institution expressly denies its responsibility to fairness and equity for its employees. It seems equally vital to me that untenured and part-time colleagues, as well as staff members, are not asked to shoulder an additional burden to compensate for this action.

I love and respect this school and have committed the entirety of my postgraduate professional life to it. I believe the best way that I can continue to show my support for its success, both at present and into the future, is to stand with my colleagues across campus in solidarity with this action.

Please let me know if you have any concerns, and I certainly will do my best to address them.

Respectfully,
Chris

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christopher C. Nagle
Associate Professor of English
and Gender & Women’s Studies
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331
p: (269)387-2591
f: (269)387-2562
e: christopher.nagle@wmich.edu
w: http://www.christophernagle.com
Pronouns: he/him/his