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Faculty Rights Tips

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Faculty Rights Tips

Find below all the Faculty Rights Tips that have appeared in CFA Headlines, CFA’s weekly email newsletter.

You are welcome to subscribe to CFA Headlines and get a Tip every week along with news and CFA views.

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To find a Faculty Rights Tip on a particular topic, use the Search function above. Enter “Faculty Rights Tip” and a relevant keyword.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Outside Employment

Article 35 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) covers outside employment.

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Faculty Rights Tip: I Need a Union Rep!

Have you (or someone you know) ever been called into a meeting with an administrator and you were not quite sure what the meeting was about?

And once in the meeting realized, you were being questioned or investigated about some issue for which you might be disciplined, reprimanded, or otherwise negatively affected? You need, and are entitled to have, a union representative or another advocate of your choosing with you at that meeting.

You can invoke your right to have an advocate with you before or during the meeting by saying:

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Advice on audio/video recordings without faculty consent

Q: Can students legally record audio or video in my classroom without my consent?

A: You have the right to be free from unauthorized recordings in the classroom. Instructors may be required to allow for recordings if they are connected to disability accommodations. Such recordings are for the accommodated student’s personal use only and may not be distributed or used for non-course related purposes. If you have questions or concerns, contact the disability resources center on your campus.

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Faculty Rights Tip: Reduction in Instructional Assignments for New Probationary Faculty

To assist new probationary faculty to establish their programs of research, scholarship, and/or creative activities, and to carry out other activities, CFA successfully bargained a reduction in their assigned teaching workload during the first two probationary years of their appointment.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Get acquainted with your evaluation criteria & procedures

With the start of a new academic year, this Faculty Rights Tip should be of interest to all faculty including coaches, counselors, librarians, lecturers, probationary, and tenured faculty.

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Faculty Rights Tip: The Work Year

As summer nears, we are reminded that there is a yearly rhythm and cycle to our work.

There are three types of “Work Years” in our Collective Bargaining Agreement:

  • Academic Year (AY)
  • Ten (10)-Month Work Year
  • Twelve (12)-Month Work Year

While the individual campuses have their own particular academic calendars, they must conform to the parameters set out in Articles 20.4, 20.5, and 20.6 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: The 125% Rule

When faculty are hired, they are often told that there are opportunities for additional employment in the summer or other “special sessions.” For many faculty, this additional employment is a critical part of their income.

Article 36 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement covers the rules for additional work and places a limitation on that “overage” to 25% of a full-time position.

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Faculty Rights Tip: Lecturer Reappointment & Careful Consideration

Through collective bargaining, Lecturers in the CSU have won the important right to periodic evaluations of their work and “careful consideration” for reappointment.

Under Article 12.7 of our collective bargaining agreement, a department (or equivalent unit) has the contractual obligation to give “careful consideration” to all Lecturers who apply for subsequent employment.

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Faculty Rights Tip: Summer Term Employment

Article 21 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement covers summer term employment for CSU faculty. Many faculty with semester, quarter, or academic-year appointments also will find summer employment in the CSU.

Summer employment can vary from campus to campus. It may take the form of state-funded year-round operations (including fee buy-down) or self-support for-credit programs offered through extension.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: June Deadlines for Notification of Tenure

Under Article 13: Tenure in our Collective Bargaining Agreement, June 1 is the contractual deadline for local campus administrators to notify probationary faculty of the final decision regarding retention, appointment with tenure, or appointment to a final terminal year. 

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Faculty Rights Tip: Intellectual Property: Who owns my online course materials?

These days many faculty members create electronic or online content for their courses. These materials are usually placed on the web in a variety of ways, often in course management systems like Blackboard or iLearn.

Occasionally there are misunderstandings about who actually owns these materials once they’re placed online.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Sick Leave

Did you know that in addition to taking sick leave for your own medical issues, you may take sick leave when a member of an immediate family member has a medical issue? The definition of immediate family includes a number of people in your family and is set out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

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Faculty Rights Tip: Evaluation Criteria

Article 15.3 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement provides that once an evaluation process begins, there shall be no changes. We all know, however, that procedures and criteria change over time.

Evaluation changes usually trigger union rights to meet and confer over the changes, and CFA engages the administration to protect our members’ rights.

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Faculty Rights Tip: Workload

Article 20 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement covers workload.

One key provision for instructional faculty is Article 20.3(a) because it provides that members of the faculty bargaining unit shall not be required to teach an excessive number of contact hours, assume an excessive student load, or be assigned an unreasonable workload or schedule.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: The Coach’s Handbook

It is important for coaches and all faculty rights advocates to be aware of coaches’ rights under our Collective Bargaining Agreement.  

The “Coaches Handbook” is a great resource for learning about those rights covering specific provisions of our Faculty Contract that apply to coaches. 

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Faculty Rights Tip: Personal Holiday

Did you know that every faculty employee is entitled to one Personal Holiday each year?

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Department Chairs are Faculty and in the Bargaining Unit

Department Chairs, while carrying out some administrative duties in assigning work to faculty, are not management personnel.  Department Chairs are faculty, and like all CSU faculty, Department Chairs are represented by CFA.  

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Faculty Rights Tip: Free speech for faculty in the CSU

The right to free speech is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It’s also guaranteed in Article 1 of the California Constitution. Moreover, faculty enjoy Academic Freedom to express ourselves in our work both on and off campus.  

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Writing rebuttals to evaluations

By now many campuses are well into their evaluation cycles.

The Faculty Contract provision below applies to all faculty undergoing any form of evaluation, but it is especially timely for probationary faculty applying for tenure or any faculty member up for promotion.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Reduction in Workload for New Probationary Faculty

In order to assist new probationary tenure-track faculty in their first two years of their appointment Article 20.36 of our Faculty Contract provides for a reduction in direct teaching assignments.  In other words, new probationary faculty have a reduced course load in their teaching assignment for their first two years.

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