TL;DR
Our united bargaining team put six articles “across the table” last Thursday: Article 2 Academic Freedom; Article 4 Non-discrimination; Article 6 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Article 25A Sabbaticals; Article (NEW) Professional Development For Fractional NTTs; and Article (NEW) Department & Campus Provisions for Fractional NTTS. (The latter two were formerly Lecturer contract articles.) Management listened intently and asked some clarifying questions. They also had questions about the Article 3 Recognition proposal we gave them last session. It seemed that they read it and had real questions — in stark contrast to what we experienced under previous administrations.
Highlights of the Session
Article 6 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Professor Khadijah Costley White (Journalism and Media Studies, New Brunswick) read a powerful statement that spoke to the loss of the Faculty Diversity Collaborative and the University Equity and Inclusion programs: “The DEI infrastructure at this university was not symbolic. It was an immense, practical resource for faculty, and especially for first-generation and underrepresented scholars who relied on the professional development, training, and acclimation that the Center provided…. [T]he Center fostered an intentional sense of community and institutional investment in faculty. That sense was visible from the outside, and it mattered deeply to those of us inside it. It facilitated connections across faculty in Newark, New Brunswick, and Camden, allowing Rutgers to better leverage its own intellectual and human resources. It created spaces where faculty could find guidance, collaboration, and belonging in what is otherwise an increasingly fragile and isolating academic environment….I urge the administration and bargaining representatives to recognize what has been lost here, not only in principle but in practice, in material and vital resources for scholars, and to take seriously the need to restore structures that provide this level of support, connection, and investment in faculty.”
Her remarks elicited appreciative and supportive comments from across the table.
On our side, Carlos Decena (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, New Brunswick) also spoke movingly about DEI. Rutgers’ mission, he reminded management, is not only to be a top-notch R1 University but also to provide unique opportunities to all kinds of students. He emphasized the importance of empathy as part of “the infrastructure of opportunity” at Rutgers. Recounting his own journey from the Dominican Republic to tenured professor, he spoke “of the work we do every day in the classroom, about the importance of faculty ‘being there’” for students like he himself once was: “The instructor could be an adjunct or distinguished professor. In those moments when we show up for another person, we foster a culture of empowerment. I am here for the students even if they don’t look like me, because someone was here for me when I needed it…I see you. This university does incredible work in this area.”
Management affirmed that our comments were very important and insisted that they reflected the values on their side of the table as well, but hedged a bit, saying, “This is a difficult time for higher education, so Rutgers’ goal is to complete the mission in a legally compliant way. Philosophically, we are aligned. The Office of General Counsel (OGC) is conservative in its approach to protecting the university, but we are all coming from the same perspective.”
AAUP-AFT President Becky Givan (Labor Studies and Employment Relations, New Brunswick) summed up, “A great deal of thought has gone into our proposals. They represent the ideas of thousands of our members. We believe our proposals are workable and true to the University’s mission. We’re here to discuss the substance of our proposal, which reflects years of joint work stemming from previous CBAs. What we’ve proposed here in Article 6 is a continuation of that work.”
There followed several questions about the details of the proposal.
Management had several questions about the Recognition proposal we presented last session. They clearly had read the text and were interested in understanding it: Is the proposal that all doctoral students be treated as employees? How do you define fellows for inclusion purposes? What is your definition of a fractional appointment? How do we account for differences in workload at the department level? Will you be making proposals specific to physicians because they are not “faculty”? Have you considered the downsides of eliminating the RBHS faculty’s “instructor” and “lecturer” ranks?
Professor Emily Marker (History, Camden) recounted the harrowing story of Mark Bray and his family having to flee the country because of credible death threats in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and her own frightening experience with doxxing because of her signing of a national letter of Jewish faculty that characterized the Israeli assault on Gaza as genocide: “I am a historian of contemporary European and Global History who teaches an undergrad course on the Holocaust and a graduate seminar on genocide in global history, so this wasn’t a mere political opinion; it was my learned judgment based on my scholarly expertise — and thus a blatant assault on my academic freedom. She also noted that “Faculty of color, women especially, have long been subject to similar threats…In this environment, we faculty need the ongoing, full-throttled support from the administration to protect our academic freedoms, to champion our scholarly expertise as well as to defend our first amendment rights to share our expertise with the public — certainly a core responsibility of public university faculty — and to help resist the wider ideological assault on higher education itself that encompasses all of these and similar instances.”
Bryan Sacks, former Adjunct Faculty Union president (Journalism and Media Studies, New Brunswick; Philosophy and Religion, Camden): “Listening to Emily’s story, we’re all reminded of what faculty are facing…There are both cultural forces and governmental authorities, sometimes working in tandem, that are trying to severely curtail faculty’s ability to do their jobs. In several disciplines, they want to constrain and dictate what faculty teach, research, say, and do both on campus and off….I want to note that whenever universities give in to pressure, they tend to be weakened. We have clear examples of Ivy League universities that lost presidents and other top administrators because of their unwillingness to stand as firmly as they could have against what was clearly an ideologically motivated, pretextual attack on their universities. We are all strengthened when universities show resolve in these matters, and even though we are sitting on opposite sides of the room here today, and in the spirit of the remarks Abbe and Julie previously made, I am comfortable pledging to you that you will have the support of our faculty unions, and the support of students, and I daresay the support of the entire university community, for showing and continuing to show this resolve.”
Department and Campus Provisions for Fractional NTTs (formerly in adjunct contract)
Adjunct Union Secretary Howie Swerdloff (Labor Studies and Employment Relations, New Brunswick): “It’s fundamental and should have been achieved years ago. That management — of any enterprise — should provide employees with the resources they need to do their jobs effectively. In this case, the employees are faculty, and our job is to teach. We need office space, computers with web access, private space to meet with students, storage space, access to supplies, and notification of department meetings. We are not taking any great leaps in this proposal; much of it is a no-brainer. But our members are still angry that we are still talking about these things after decades. Last time, we argued for hours about indefinite and ambiguous language like: “departments shall make good-faith efforts to identify space for unit members to prepare for courses and engage in other activities pertaining to their duties at the University.” That’s the best we could get! So I am grateful that this round of negotiations seems refreshingly different, and hope we can replace these vague and imprecise words with language that is enforceable.”
Article 4 Prohibited Discrimination and Prohibited Harassment
Becky Givan: “The article has modest changes that reflect existing law and policy, codifying into our contract language that exists elsewhere, such as NJLAD. There are two parts: 1) discrimination and harassment, and 2) the accommodations process. We feel strongly about the accommodations process. If you prefer it to be in a separate article, we’re open to it, wherever it lands. Our proposals apply to everyone in the proposed unit. In paragraph 2, we’ve added “caste” to the covered categories. Paragraph 3 covers the right of unit members to use their preferred name and pronouns, and the resources they need from the university to facilitate that. Paragraph 4 describes the procedure for requesting reasonable accommodation. Our members find the current process hard to navigate, adversarial, and lacking compassion and humanity… People have been told that accommodation is too expensive! The ability to get accommodation should not depend on department-level budget considerations; we need central funding. Our proposals would make the process easier to navigate and more supportive of the person.”
Professional Development for Fractional NTTs
Adjunct Union President Heather Pierce (Political Science, New Brunswick): “Our changes would streamline the process and provide easier access. We are proposing to raise the annual fund to $300K; we have spent the previous monies entirely. [Note: There was some disagreement from the other side on this point.] The fund has done a lot of great work, research in the scholars’ fields, and provided technology for teaching. All told, the program has had very positive effects. But it was a nightmare to implement for the Union and the University. Applications were submitted via email to the chair or program director, then to the dean, then to OTEAR, and finally to the EVPAA for a final decision. Admin then would have to figure out how to disperse the award in line with other requirements. We don’t know who or how many tried to apply but never got through. A chair in Newark didn’t even notice four applications; there is a common misunderstanding: money is not coming from their budgets. This proposal would eliminate the middlemen, create a common web portal, and route applications to the EVPAA for decision-making, implementation, and distribution. Also, importantly, applications would be allowed twice per year instead of once, making it possible to disburse funds when they are needed.”
Article 25A Sabbatical Leave Program
Becky Givan: “Most of the changes are for clarity, equity, and consistency in applying to all faculty. There is also clarifying language for people whose work is not organized by semester. We want to be clear that parental leave does count as service. The current language is not supportive of those with caregiving and parenting responsibilities. Paragraph 7 takes away the distinction between leaves and eliminates 44A, an entirely unnecessary provision created to allow ‘terminal sabbaticals’ (for faculty who retired following sabbatical). Others are required to return, but that should not be the case if you are retiring. We also removed a reference to pensions and allowed pay from outside sources, among other changes.”
Becky’s final word: “It would be great if we could TA Articles 2, 4, and 6 quickly. That would send a positive message to our members!”
Management: “We’re going to focus on 2, 4, 6.”
Mark your calendar!
The next session is scheduled for Friday, April 17, from 12 pm to 4 pm in New Brunswick
Other Upcoming Events
Click here for a full calendar: https://rutgersaaup.org/events/
Our Bargaining Team
| Austin | Rooney | Camden | Philosophy & Religion |
| Beth | Adubato | Newark | School of Criminal Justice |
| Bryan | Sacks | Camden | Philosophy & Religion |
| David | Letwin | College Ave-NB | Rutgers Arts Online |
| Howie | Swerdloff | Cook-NB | Labor Studies & Employee Relations |
| Boris | Paskhover | Newark | Otolaryngology (NJMS) |
| Catherine | Monteleone | RWJMS-NB | Medicine |
| Claire | O’Connell | Busch-Nb | School Of Health Professions |
| Cynthia | Sutton | RSDM-Newark | RSDM Diagnostic |
| Jeff | Levine | College Ave-NB | Family Medicine (RWJ) |
| Josh | Bucher | College Ave-NB | Emergency Medicine (RWJ) |
| Kathleen | Beebe | Newark | Orthopedics (NJMS) |
| Melissa | Rogers | Newark | Microbiology (NJMS) |
| Pankaj | Agarwalla | Newark | Neurosurgery (NJMS) |
| Rula | Btoush | Newark | School of Nursing |
| Stephan | Schwander | NB Piscataway | SPH |
| Tessa | Bergsbaken | Newark | Immunity & Inflammation (NJMS) |
| LaToya | Gibbons | Camden | Enrollment & Student Success |
| Miguel | Rodriguez | College Ave-NB | School of Arts and Sciences |
| Adrian | Liu | College Ave-NB | Philosophy |
| Alexander | Steiner | RCI | Radiation Oncology |
| Annika | Barber | Busch-NB | Microbiology |
| Becky | Givan | Cook-NB | Labor Studies & Employee Relations |
| Britt | Paris | College Ave-NB | Library & Information Science |
| Bryan | Oller | Newark | Physics |
| Carlos | Decena | Livingston-NB | Latino & Hispanic Caribbean St |
| Chidera | Ntiwunka-Ifeanyi | Busch-NB | Biomedical Engineering |
| Emily | Marker | Camden | History |
| Ian | Oiler | Newark | Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine/Earth and Environmental Sciences |
| Kathy | Lopez | Camden | Public Policy |
| Kyle | Riismandel | Newark | History |
| Lee | Carpenter | Camden | Law School |
| Lily | Todorinova | Douglass-NB | New Brunswick Library |
| Paul | O’Keefe | Livingston-NB | Geography |
| Season | Qiu | Newark | Molecular And Behavioral Neuroscience |
| Tara | Matise | Busch-NB | Genetics |
| Heather | Pierce | College Ave-NB | Political Science |
| Luis | Soto | Livingston-NB | Criminal Justice |