2025: UNITED FACULTY WINS EARLY TENURE FOR FIVE FACULTY IN SETTLEMENT WITH UNI AND BOARD OF REGENTS
The Board of Regents this week approved tenure and promotion to associate professor for five UNI faculty members, effective retroactively to July 1, 2024. United Faculty worked together with the faculty to build the case, and the right corrective measure ultimately happened. We appreciate the settlement with the university and board. Congratulations to these five outstanding faculty members! This is why we have a faculty union. See the Cedar Rapids Gazette story for more details.
2024: UNITED FACULTY WINS RECERTIFICATION BY HUGE MARGIN
The votes are in, and UNI faculty members again overwhelmingly supported United Faculty’s recertification: 98.3% of faculty votes supported United Faculty. This year continues the extraordinarily high levels of support United Faculty has received from UNI faculty. In 2018, 97% of voting faculty supported UF with “yes” votes. In 2020, 97.5% of those voting again supported UF. Again in 2022, 97% of voting faculty supported United Faculty.
2023: UNITED FACULTY REVEALS UNI SHIFTED MORE THAN $1 MILLION TO COVER ATHLETICS DEFICITS
The University of Northern Iowa administration quietly shifted nearly $1.06 million of General University Support Funds to the UNI Athletics in the past two fiscal years, to bail out the athletics program for shortfalls in its budget. The shifting of General University Support Funds, from which the university’s academic affairs operations are funded, to UNI Athletics comes at a time when UNI academic programs are suffering from deep cuts and shrinking faculty numbers.
“We are completely astonished to discover this,” United Faculty president Chris Martin said. “This amount is equivalent to funding 10 or more tenure-track faculty positions, which we desperately need as many faculty positions have remained unfilled. It’s a gut punch to our high goals and expectations for UNI academics.”
In resulting discussions with the UNI President, UNI resolved to be more transparent and avoid any shifts from general funds. See news coverage:
- Vanessa Miller, “Northern Iowa faculty seek end to general fund support for athletics,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, Dec. 11, 2023.
- Brooklyn Draisey, “UNI faculty union speaks out against use of general university support funds for athletics budget,” Iowa Capital Dispatch, Dec. 8, 2023.
- “United Faculty calls out use of funds: Over $1 million of general support fund shifted to UNI Athletics in the last two years,” Northern Iowan, Dec. 6, 2023.
- Nick Weig, “UNI faculty concerned about nearly $1M funds redirection to athletics with tight budget,” CBS2, Dec. 6, 2023.
- “University of Northern Iowa faces allegations of moving school funds to cover losses,” KWWL, Dec. 6, 2023.
2015: MAJOR ARBITRATION VICTORY: In July, United Faculty won a major arbitration award on behalf of a faculty member who had been the subject of an improperly conducted investigation by the UNI Office of Compliance and Equity Management (OCEM). According to the arbitrator, conclusions from the investigation were entirely unfounded. As part of the award, the OCEM’s findings must be removed from the faculty member’s file. This was a lengthy and expensive arbitration. The findings will have important implications for protecting the due process rights of all UNI faculty.
MANDATORY REPORTING POLICY: In 2015, United Faculty filed a Prohibitive Practice Complaint (PPC) with the Iowa Public Employee Relations Board (IPERB) regarding the OCEM’s new mandatory reporting policy. The policy requires faculty to report to OCEM any employee the faculty member believes might be engaged in sexual misconduct toward another employee. The requirement would exist even if a fellow employee came to a colleague seeking support or advice but did not want to file a complaint. Among other concerns, UF believes the policy will have a chilling effect upon the ability of sexual misconduct victims to seek support from friends and colleagues. After United Faculty filed the PPC, President Ruud formed a work group that included UF representation (Barbara Cutter), to review the policy and make recommendations for revisions. In May, the work group submitted its report to him. Earlier this week, President Ruud agreed with a work group recommendation that will remove the mandatory requirement for faculty to report other employees. United Faculty is indebted to faculty members Cyndi Dunn, Barbara Cutter, and Catherine MacGillivray for their great work on the work group. Their efforts will help strengthen due process for all UNI faculty.
COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION GRIEVANCE: On September 9th, 2015, the Interim Dean of the College of Business Administration promulgated the college’s 2015 Merit Guidelines. The guidelines state, “in order to be considered for merit, a faculty member must administer student assessments in all sections of all classes every regular semester.” (emphasis added) The requirement violates contract provisions which state, “Tenured faculty members shall be assessed by students during the fall or spring semester each second (2nd) year, not counting years on leave or non-teaching assignments.” (emphasis added) United Faculty regards the interim dean’s merit guidelines as an attempt to subvert the contractual agreement between UF and the Board of Regents. For this reason, UF has filed an organizational grievance alleging violations of contract provisions 3.22, 3.23, 3.26, 8.03. It is important to know that this very issue was resolved in United Faculty’s favor in a 2012 arbitration award.
PROGRAM DEFINITIONS: Article 5.2 of the new contract is an important victory for UNI faculty and our families. The article’s new provisions will prevent administrations from engaging in the type of employment termination tactics used in 2012. In short, management will not be able to create arbitrary program boundaries that target specific faculty for layoffs. I am pleased to report that Provost Wohlport and Associate Provost Cobb are working very collaboratively with United Faculty on program definitions. Not surprisingly, a project of this nature will have a few bumps in the road. But, all in all, I could not be more pleased with the spirit of collaboration between the provost’s office and the union on this issue. Bear in mind there is virtually zero chance that article 5.2 will be implemented this year. Program definitions will be revisited annually so anything not fully resolved by October 1st should be fixable next year.
THE FOUR/FOUR “ACTIVE SCHOLAR” POLICY: Based on Joe Gorton’s discussions with Provost Wohlpart, it’s fair to say that the Gibson 4/4 “Active Scholar” policy and procedures are dead. It is our understanding that we have returned to the pre-Gibson straightforward interpretation of the Master Agreement. Unless a member of the faculty chooses to not engage in ‘scholarly or creative work and service,” the expected teaching load will not exceed nine hours per semester. The number or type of research/creative projects will no longer be a factor that could cause a faculty member to be assigned to a 4/4 load. UF wants to thank Provost Wohlport for his common sense interpretation of the teaching load provisions of the Master Agreement.