In this edition we are featuring Judith Gabriele, the ever-smiling and elegant French language faculty. Judith has long served the College and the UFE – this year marks her 30th year teaching at Evergreen, and she has been a UFE Steward since the formation of the faculty union. Judith has served on the UFE Coordinating Committee for the last five years. Judith was raised in Tacoma. After high school, she received her teaching certification in elementary and k-12 education. However, she found she didn’t love teaching to these ages, so she earned a bachelors in nursing and worked inRead More
Collective bargaining in the academy within the United States started in 1918 when a group of faculty at Howard University joined forces with the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) to try to improve their working conditions, but the initiative ultimately failed. Some of the earliest bargaining agreements were achieved for faculty in the 1930s and 1940s (Herbert & Apkarian, 2017). However, these early contracts were the result of informal and voluntary recognition by institutions, rather than legal mandates or enabling legislation. In the 1960s, bargaining became more widespread, and the American Association of University Professors and the National EducationRead More
Two key components of the two-year CBA Extension MOU (signed November 17, 2021) are currently underway. Brad Proctor and Nancy Koppelman have been appointed to lead the Student Recruitment and Retention effort (Parts 1-3 of the MOU), and they are currently working with Admissions on this vital project. They are looking for faculty volunteers to support the work (according to the MOU, this counts as governance work), which will include direct contact with prospective students. If you have interest in joining this effort, or if you have any ideas you’d like to share about recruitment and retention, please emailRead More
At the end of 2021, the UFE and TESC management reached an agreement on a Winter Quarter 2022 COVID-19 Safety MOU. The new MOU reads much like its predecessor from Fall Quarter, with a new phrase that acknowledges that TESC is considering possible changes to its instructional footing for spring 2022 and which states that these changes must be bargained. Read/Download: Final Safety MOU Winter 2022 Of course, Omicron has surged since this MOU was signed. Here are some updates you may have missed: Switch to remote: For the month of January, TESC encouraged faculty to substitute remote learning forRead More
Hello UFE Members, It’s been a year since we published our last newsletter, in part because I took maternity leave for Spring and Summer quarters 2021. Additionally, late summer and fall quarter last year saw UFE leadership immersed in an intense period of negotiation, the outcome of which was a 2 year extension of the CBA. Going forward, we are aiming for a more frequent newsletter. In addition to providing updates, we hope the UFE newsletter brings added value to our UFE Members – as you’ll see, this issue provides some fun reading, including a report on unionization inRead More
At 5pm on November 16, the voting closed on the TA on the 2-year MOU. The UFE Membership ratified this MOU by voting 70 in favor and 22 opposed. Voter turnout was 89%. Thank you for your careful consideration of this MOU and your engagement in this difficult topic. We are proud that we have protected all faculty jobs and made salaries whole for the duration of this two-year agreement. We also feel hopeful that both voluntary resignations and retirements and the faculty recruitment effort, while a lofty goal, can prevent or reduce any reductions that might be necessaryRead More
The United Faculty of Evergreen and The Evergreen State College management reached a two-year tentative agreement after a lengthy negotiation over hard issues that are grounded in increasing student recruitment and retention. This MOU gives faculty agency to recruit students, avoid an immediate RIF procedure and shape curricular areas/academic units through CAT leaders’ involvement in CRT. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) addresses issues fundamental to the continued success of the College and its faculty: current low student enrollment college reorganization and a new reduction-in-force procedure faculty participation in increasing student enrollment to avoid reduction-in-force faculty agency in reviewing studentRead More
UFE and Evergreen have reached an agreement to extend the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to September 30, 2021. The CBA was previously set to expire on August 31, 2021. Please see the attached Memorandum of Understanding, which has been approved by the UFE Stewards’ Council and Evergreen’s Board of Trustees. Notably, last year’s furlough agreement has expired. That means that faculty who were furloughed last year should now see full pay on their first paycheck of fall quarter, along with their standard experience year increases. { 2021-8-31 MOU Contract Extension } Although we are past the term of the extension,Read More
