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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: 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. 

Contract Article15.5 provides that: 

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Lecturers & Canceled Classes

Here’s a timely tip for Lecturers who may be assigned to a class that gets canceled in the first few weeks of the term (from Article 12.5):  

“… If a class is canceled prior to the third class meeting, the temporary employee shall be paid the portion of the term worked prior to the cancellation.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Emergency Leave

The Collective Bargaining Agreement provides for leave for faculty who need to take time off due to emergency situations. While several campuses closed operations in the past weeks, others stayed open. It’s important to know that regardless of your campus’s open/closed status, you’re entitled to paid leave if you need it. 

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Article 34, Vacation for 10 and 12-Month Faculty

Article 34 of our faculty contract covers vacations. The Vacation Article only applies to faculty with 10 or 12-month appointments, and it does not apply to faculty on Academic Year appointments.  

Faculty who qualify under Article 34 earn two days of vacation for every qualifying month of service. Part-time faculty earn this same credit on a pro-rata basis.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Searchable Online Faculty Contract

Did you know that the CFA contract is online and searchable?  You can browse the entire faculty contract here.

That is a searchable HTML document. You could enter any search term in your browser search window and search the entire contract for all references to that term. For example, you could search for all the instances of “parental leave” and it would return all the places you would find that term throughout the contract.

Headline

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: Personal Holiday

With the approaching end of the current calendar year it’s useful to know that every faculty employee is entitled to one Personal Holiday each year. Our faculty contract states:

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Range Elevation

Range elevation is the process through which eligible Lecturers and temporary Librarians can increase their salaries by moving from one salary range to the next.

Normally, eligibility requires five years of service in current range and no Service Salary Increase (SSI) eligibility. Thanks to CFA’s Bargaining Team, range elevation has been expanded so that long-term Lecturers, even if they have not maxed out SSIs, may be eligible too.

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: What’s in your Personnel Action File? (Part 2)

Every faculty member has a Personnel Action File (PAF). It’s the only official personnel file for employment information and information that may be relevant to personnel recommendations or actions. 

Occasionally an administrator may seek to put information into a faculty member’s PAF that is not part of the regular periodic review. Article 11 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement outlines the due process that must be followed in these cases. 

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: What’s in your PAF?

Every faculty member, including instructional faculty, coaches, counselors, and librarians has a Personnel Action File (PAF). It is the only official personnel file for employment information and information that may be relevant to personnel recommendations or actions.

Article 11 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement covers the various rules about faculty Personnel Action Files. 

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Peer Review Committees for Tenure-Line Hiring

Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement’s Article 12.22, “[e]ach department or equivalent unit must elect a peer review committee of tenured employees for the purpose of reviewing and recommending individuals for probationary appointments.”

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: What to do when you want to report discrimination, harassment, or retaliation

Article 16 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the “Non-Discrimination” article, “prohibits discrimination against faculty unit employees on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, marital status, pregnancy, age, disability, medical condition, or veteran status.”

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: 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. 

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Faculty Rights Tip of the Week: Lecturer Preference for Work at the Start of the Academic Year

At the beginning of each new term during the academic year the teaching assignments for Lecturers are often in flux until the last minute. It can be a challenging time for both Lecturers and department chairs.

Article 12.29a of our Collective Bargaining agreement governs the assignment of classes during the academic year (i.e. in terms other than Fall). This article provides protection for long-term Lecturers. The administration must follow the order of appointments specified in this article.

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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: Summer 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: 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: Who owns my electronic 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: Grievance Filing

Did you know that you have 42 days to file a grievance if you believe your workplace rights have been violated?

Article 10.4 allows you to file a grievance no later than 42 calendar days after the event giving rise to the grievance or 42 days after you knew or reasonably should have known of the event giving rise to the grievance.

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Faculty Rights Tip: What to do if you or someone you know receives a notice of pending discipline

If you receive a “Notice of Pending Discipline” it is important to contact your CFA representative immediately. The timelines articulated in Article 19 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) move very quickly. 

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