Dear Colleagues,

At their October 21 meeting, the Board of Trustees approved a proposal advanced by the Subcommittee on Lecturers and Adjuncts over the last two years that would (a) include senior lecturers and full clinical professors in the School of Law among those eligible to serve on school grievance committees and the Faculty Judicial Board, (b) for schools with too few senior lecturers, or if the School of Law has too few full clinical professors, extend eligibility for the school grievance committee to renewable-term lecturers in their second term and, in the School of Law, to associate clinical professors, (c) balance the composition of the school committees to allow equal representation of tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, and (d) require that representation on hearing panels correspond to the tenure status of the parties to the complaint. (SubFAC 20-01-29; revising Faculty Handbook 3.10.1.2, 3.10.2.1 and Appendix A Supplement V.B.4-5 and VIII).

We celebrate the patience and persistence of the Subcommittee on Lecturers and Adjuncts, and particularly its chair last year, Laura Doyle, as they worked the proposal through shared governance, consulting with the Faculty Affairs Committee and Faculty Senate Council until a resolution satisfactory to all our faculty could be reached. The Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees was unanimous in its endorsement to the full Board, recognizing it as a basic principle of fairness to have a jury of one’s peers.

The approval of the proposal by the Board of Trustees signals the conclusion of the shared governance process on this matter. Please note, however, that the proposal cannot yet be implemented with respect to those non-tenure-track faculty who are members of the SEIU Local 1021 bargaining unit. Although this change has been long discussed and received several tentative approvals along the way, it was not formally approved by the University until after the NTT faculty had selected SEIU Local 1021 as their exclusive representative for purposes of bargaining with the University concerning wages, hours and working conditions. Grievance procedures are part of “working conditions,” and fall under the list of mandatory subjects of collective bargaining. As such, we may not implement these changes with respect to the represented NTT faculty until after we have had the opportunity to present them to the union and receive their agreement to move forward. We look forward to advancing the representation of NTT faculty in grievance processes in our negotiations with SEIU Local 1021.

Sincerely, 

Ed Ryan
Acting Provost

Kate Morris  
Acting Provost