Dear Colleagues, CFA Headlines goes on holiday hiatus after today. We wish you a wonderful holiday season and will be back with you starting January 10, when, as always, there will be plenty to share.
Also, we remind CalPERS members that if you have not yet voted, please vote before the December 11 deadline in the runoff election for the At-Large Member of the CalPERS Board. CFA endorses Michael Bilbrey. Learn more about him and get voting information at http://voteunion.com
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In this issue
During December, committees of the California State Legislature will hold hearings that could lead to new action on programs in public higher education including the CSU.
The State Senate’s Select Committee on Student Success will take testimony on remedial education in California’s public higher education system. This special committee’s chair, Senator Steven Glazer, has been a proponent of finding ways to move students to degrees faster, particularly in four years in the CSU.
A topic CFA will raise in public comment at the hearing is the CSU Chancellor’s Executive Order 1110 that makes broad changes to remedial education. CFA formally opposes EO 1110, as well as EO 1100 addressing general education, because the administration did not include proper and legally-required faculty participation on these curriculum matters before issuing the orders. CFA President Jennifer Eagan spoke to this at the most recent CSU Trustees meeting. The CSU Academic Senate is scheduled to testify.
CFA urges faculty in the Los Angeles area to attend to show support for CFA speakers who will address positive ways to help students in need of additional preparation. The Senate hearing on remedial education will be:
Monday, December 4, 9:30 am
In the Santa Monica City College Board Room
1900 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica
The State Assembly Higher Education and Assembly Education Committees will hear testimony next week at a joint hearing about solutions to California’s shortage of credentialed teachers in the K-12 system.
“Over the years, CSU faculty have witnessed a decline in the number of students pursuing teaching credentials,” says CFA Treasurer Susan Green, who is also a leader in the California Teachers Association, and who will testify for CFA at the hearing.
“This is due in part to a long-term political attack on the teaching profession that had discouraged students from pursing the teaching profession, as well as a struggle to win pay and benefits that provide teachers a middle-class living in the locales where they teach,” Green says. “It will take strong commitment from the state to restore the ideals that motivated so many of us to become teachers.”
Faculty in the Sacramento area are urged to attend the hearing:
Tuesday, December 5, 1:30 pm
The State Capital, Sacramento, Room 4203 Listen to a live audio stream
For more information about these hearings, contact CFA Legislative Director Mario Guerrero.
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:
“If this discussion could in any way lead to my being disciplined or terminated, or affect my working conditions, I request that my CFA representative or another advocate of my choosing be present at this meeting.”
The administrator must grant the request even if it means rescheduling the meeting to a time that works for you and your advocate.
The rights of represented (i.e. you are in a union) employees to bring an advocate and to have the time needed to obtain an advocate for investigatory meetings comes from the 1975 Supreme Court case, NLRB v. J. Weingarten, thus the term “Weingarten Rights.”
Given the increase in investigatory meetings, it’s important to know about and exercise these rights now more than ever. If you are called in, clarify whether the meeting could result in discipline.
Here are links to previous Faculty Rights Tips about Weingarten Rights:
CFA is here to help! If you have concerns, contact your campus CFA faculty rights representative
For answers to questions or to suggest a tip, please write us with the subject line “Faculty Rights Tip.” See previous Faculty Rights Tips on a range of topics in our contract.
Stan State shows Warrior spirit with donations to fire victims Turlock Journal
The Stanislaus State Campus Cares Fund, created by the CFA Stanislaus Chapter to provide aid to students dealing with food insecurity, homelessness or unexpected emergencies, kickstarted a crowdfunding effort to assist the fire victims at Sonoma State. Stan State President Ellen Junn: “We are very fortunate that Campus Cares was started by the CFA” … “One of the really neat things about being in the CSU is that we get to care for our students,” said CFA President Steven Filling. “We get to put our money where our mouth is, and really importantly tonight, caring for our students means not just our Warriors, but our students in Sonoma too. You’ve had our thoughts and prayers, and at the end of the year you’ll get our check.”
Q&A with MEChA’s three-day march organizers The Signal
The Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlan (MEChA) Club organized a three-day march with the hopes of advocating and pressuring Congress for a “clean DREAM Act. The march went from Merced to Livingston, Livingston to Turlock and Turlock to Modesto on Nov. 10-12.
Grad Students Would Be Hit By Massive Tax Hike Under House Bill NPR-FM
GAO Report on Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Inside Higher Ed
Major findings include that non-tenure-track professors teach about 45 to 54 percent of all courses at four-year public institutions and higher proportions at two-year publics.
AAUP: November-December 2017 Academe
This issue examines political and other divisions within higher education. Contributions from faculty members, AAUP chapter leaders, and an undergraduate activist consider how to advance learning and social justice in tense campus climates.
Withering Humanities Jobs Inside Higher Ed
Full-time jobs in English and languages continue to decline, reaching a new low, says preliminary annual jobs report from the Modern Language Association.
Another Bad Year for History Jobs Inside Higher Ed
American Historical Association sees 12 percent decline in openings, for fifth straight year of downward trend.
Report: Only 30% of ninth-graders will graduate from college San Jose Mercury
Under New Law, Iowa Unions Vote to Recertify Inside Higher Ed
Faculty union advocates in Iowa were worried earlier this year when state legislators passed a law saying that public-sector unions would have to vote, by a two-thirds majority, to recertify their collective bargaining units before the end of every contract. Yet all seven faculty and graduate student bargaining units passed the new threshold for recertification—most by wide margins.
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