27 April 2016

Who's Sharing the Governance of What, Exactly?

From the transcript of of Interim Provost Feser's remarks in this morning's bargaining session:

"there are a lot of things i want that i don’t get because of shared governance. I think the key subject for us is that ntts don’t have access to shared governance, and we are pushing our colleagues on that and it is taking a long time. A commitment to shared governance means that you don’t bypass that process. I am very happy to work on how ntts get into shared governance. I don't believe in going around shared governance to get what one group of faculty want to get what another group of faculty does not want. Its commitment to that process that we see is vital, especially when we see outside parties attacking it. Even if I agreed with what you proposed, I don't want to bypass shared governance."

The AAUP is pretty clear on this point: shared governance is a faculty working condition. If a unit is not willing to codify the role of its non-tenure-track faculty within a contractually mandated time frame, then the problem isn't the union, it's units that wants faculty-who-are-not-faculty, warm bodies to do the teaching, research, and service, without the working conditions of faculty. 

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