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Town Hall: A New Deal For Higher Ed — Tuesday, March 9, 12-1pm CST

Thank you to all who attended our first Town Hall! This month the NTFC is happy to host Town Halls as a series of forums to share information and experiences teaching at UIUC during the pandemic.

Our second Town Hall is centered around the AFT-AAUP A New Deal for Higher Education campaign. An IFT representative and NTFC representatives will be on hand to share information, answer questions, and hear your thoughts. This is an open forum for faculty of all levels to discuss this national effort to make public colleges and universities more accessible to all students.

When: Tuesday, March 9, 12-1pm CST

Where: A New Deal For Higher Ed

Town Hall: Strategies for Engaging in Shared Governance and Why it Matters — Friday, March 5, 3-4pm CST

During the month of March, the NTFC is happy to host Town Halls as a series of forums to share information and experiences teaching at UIUC during the pandemic.

Our first Town Hall is centered around Strategies for Engaging in Shared Governance. This is an open forum for faculty with all levels of experience and familiarity with shared governance to attend. NTFC representatives will be on hand to discuss your questions and concerns and present strategies for engaging on departmental, school, college, and university levels.

When: Friday, March 5, 3-4pm CST

Where: NTFC Local #6546 Town Hall — Shared Governance

Non-Instruction Break Days and ICES

We have been informed by the administration that non-instruction break days should be treated as Spring Break for faculty and students.

Some of our questions were posed previously during an undergraduate deans meeting and we received more insight from administration in our last Labor Management Meeting.

Instructors should not schedule additional sessions to compensate for the double Wednesday or single Tuesday cancellation. In the case where a course meets only once a week, the two Wednesday non-instruction break days would essentially result in a 13-week semester. Course load will be up to faculty discretion, however it should coincide with communication at a unit and/or program level to navigate curricula in an equitable manner.

For example, faculty might make a modest modification to the course in light of the break days by assigning additional homework or reading to offset the two Wednesdays break days.

Whether or not faculty hold office hours on non-instruction break days is also a matter of instructor discretion.

ICES SCORES

Our team continues to meet with the administration to make sure our members are protected and supported during this tumultuous time.

We have asked the administration about the possibility of adding notations or language in the ICES core request form where faculty could choose to exclude semesters when they make a promotional request.

While the administration does want FA20 scores to go into promotional files, they also acknowledged that FA20 is measuring a different kind of teaching in most cases, so some sort of stipulation to note the difference of modality may be appropriate. For example, Fall ICES is capturing faculty’s online teaching—not their f2f.

Any glaring differences should be contextualized by faculty in a promotional dossier if there is any concern about interpretation. The administration has agreed that if 2020 is an outlier in an ICES core, most people aren’t likely to miss the fact that the scores occurred during COVID.

We are asking for an additional look at ways to mark ICES scores during COVID.

Want to know more? Have concerns you want addressed? Reach out to our Bargaining Chair, Jordan Sellers.

Fall 2020 Amendment

Amendment Proposed to clarify financial “review” vs. “statement” in the NTFC Constitution

Presented to the membership for vote, October 29, 2020

Passed by Membership November 5, 2020

Ratified November 10, 2020

Article V

Duties of officers

Section 4. The Treasurer shall:

f) prepare a financial ~~review~~ statement in accordance with AFT/IFT ~~and AAUP~~ rules and guidelines, present ~~review~~ that statement to the Executive Council ~~or a committee appointed by the Executive Council~~, and present a final ~~review~~ statement to the membership at a general membership meeting and later transmit the approved ~~review~~ statement to the AFT/IFT ~~and AAUP~~.

Background

NTFC’s current Constitution requires the Treasurer to prepare a “financial review” and promulgate that review to the Executive Council, membership, and AFT/IFT and AAUP. When our Constitution was ratified in 2014, the term “review” was intended to ensure that the Treasurer present an annual overview of finances. However, AFT/IFT has now specified that the term “review” indicates a more formal process, which would require the union to form a finance review committee (made up of union members) that would complete a series of AFT/IFT forms.

This proposed amendment would specify that the Treasurer would regularly be expected to produce a “statement” (a one-page annual statement of our receipts and disbursements) for the annual process of documentation; AFT/IFT guidelines will still require a “review” that would occur every three years (which would become annual if NTFC’s membership exceeded 300). Finally, this proposed amendment would strike “or a committee appointed by the Executive Council,” which could muddle our internal financial reporting, and reporting to AAUP, which is unnecessary for locals such as ours (as advised by IFT).

You will be asked to vote for one of the following options:

____ Yes. I vote to adopt the resolution put forward to modify Article V.4.f of the NTFC Local #6546 Constitution.

____ No. I vote to reject the resolution put forward to modify Article V.4.f of the NTFC Local #6546 Constitution.

Voting will begin online at 6pm on Thursday, October 29th and end at 6pm on Thursday, November 5th. Any questions can be raised at the All Members Meeting, or you can contact us.

ATLAS Tech For Teaching | Fall 2020

Here’s some great news for all of our colleagues in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences!

This is a message from ATLAS, the LAS tech service. If you’re having any difficulty getting the tech you need to teach this Fall, please reach out to your department’s EO’s and staff to make sure they know about this option.

ATLAS remains committed and ready to assist instructors with their technology needs as we transition into this unprecedented Fall semester. We realize that additional technology may be needed to support remote instruction. Things such as cameras, microphones, etc. may be needed to support instructional delivery. ATLAS has set aside funds to aid FTE instructors and faculty who need to purchase these types of devices.

ATLAS will provide up to $200 per instructor towards the purchase of this equipment. Due to capacity constraints, ATLAS is unable to handle the logistics of all of the potential requests, therefore we are requesting that the departmental business managers and/or administrative assistants track the requests and execute the purchases and delivery of these devices. Please maintain a spreadsheet of these items including cost, item, names, and NetIDs.

If your unit has substantial needs beyond what this initiative can support, please let us know so we can work with you to come up with a solution. ATLAS will review the spreadsheet and do a lump fund transfer to the departments after the semester is over (we are targeting mid-January for the transfer).

Thank you

ATLAS

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