Your raises are finally coming and other news from the FSU

10/15/2018

Dear Colleague,

Some great news and reminders from the FSU.   

►Your raises:  Even though you ratified our contract in the summer, we have not received our raises because the legislature and Governor had yet to validate and fund our contracts (and other UMass contracts).  The House Ways and Means Committee just released a supplemental budget to fund these, and we expect both Houses to pass this and for the Governor to sign.  Yes you will receive retroactive pay. 

►Distressed and Distressing Students: A number of members have contacted the FSU with concerns about how to manage situations involving distressed or distressing students.  We have urged the Dean of Students office to hold workshops on this topic, and they will start doing so again.  In the meantime, this office provides resources for faculty on how to manage these situations (see here for more information, and here for the form to report such problems). We strongly encourage you to contact the Dean of Students for further assistance. If, after contacting the Dean of Students, you still have questions or concerns about this issue, please let us know.

►REMINDER: Template for evaluating teaching for tenure cases:

We are aware that departments are being asked to assemble new information (for many departments) for faculty who are up for promotion. This information includes teaching evaluation averages in the department and for the classes taught by the faculty member who is going up for promotion.

Some departments are upset by this; some are not. Know that the contract says that departments have the right to decide how to evaluate teaching (see Article 33.4 of the contract). So if this is not information that you utilize in your own tenure reviews, and thus you don’t have this information since this is not consistent with tenure reviews you perform, and you don’t want to be tainted by seeing this information, you can certainly argue that you do not want to assemble this information because you do not want to be influenced by this information.

Of course, there are other reasons for departments not wishing to follow these procedures as well (such as research on gender and racial bias), but we wanted to inform you of what the contract says about this issue.  In fact, because of these other reasons, the Faculty Council recently passed on October 1 the following motion:

The Faculty Council rejects the adoption of the Interim Provost’s Statistical Teaching Template in matters of Tenure and Promotion at UMass Boston and advises academic departments, Department Personnel Committees, Department Chairs and College Personnel Committees against its use.

Marlene Kim

FSU President

Professor, Economics

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