LTTE: Support UConn Faculty’s Reasonable Contract Demands 

For months now, the UConn-AAUP negotiating team has made minimal progress at the bargaining table across from the UConn administration’s negotiators. It is time for President Radenka Maric’s negotiators to agree to our important contract proposals on academic freedom, paid family and caregiver leave, and job security for clinical, in-residence and extension (CIRE) faculty.   

This morning, on the day of an official contract negotiating session between the two sides, many faculty emailed the administration’s negotiating team asking for progress on these three key issues. If the administration finally accepts our proposals, it would improve the quality and dignity of work on UConn campuses, bolster research and dialogue, and help us serve as better teachers, advisors and mentors to you, the students. 

What exactly is at stake right now? 

First, academic freedom is a cornerstone of teaching, learning and exploration. A university is a place for multiple perspectives and a clash of ideas. Not all ideas are popular, however, and we live in an age where political forces may take items out of context or dox faculty for what they teach and say.  

That’s why we have proposed to include in the agreement, among other things, that “All members of the faculty, whether tenured or not, are entitled to academic freedom set forth in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure formulated by the Association of American Colleges and the American Association of University Professors.” The current language on academic freedom that is in the University by-laws should also be included in our new contract. 

Second, on paid family and caregiver leave: students benefit from healthy, focused faculty in the lab, in the classroom, and in other academic settings. We want to put our best foot forward. Whether due to pregnancy, adoption and parenting; caregiving for relatives such as aging parents; illness and injury; or other reasons. 

In short, under current agreements and policy, “UConn professors get zero days of guaranteed paid family leave,” as our colleague Prof. Sarah Hird recently wrote. That’s why we have proposed a new agreement of 16 weeks of guaranteed paid family leave.   

Third, as the university increasingly relies on faculty on contracts – known as CIRE faculty – rather than in tenure-track or tenured positions, it is vital to offer job protections. CIRE faculty extensively contribute to our UConn community, and they deserve to be treated as valued employees, not expendable job widgets. Current and future employees can have a probationary period, but if someone is performing their job well, they should not have to worry about losing their job at the end of the year, for no reason and no recourse. Right now, CIRE faculty earn “just cause” protections in their seventh year. We’re looking to reduce that time, but the University has proposed the opposite — pushing such job protections out to the 11th year. 

For example, if you commit to developing new, innovative, engaging courses, you should have some security that such course development is time well spent – that you will teach the course at UConn for several years. A multi-year contract and our other proposals would do just that. 

We have put forth commonsense proposals for a quality and humane working environment. Our contract ideas comport with our peer institutions and, more broadly, with decent working conditions and human rights standards. It is well past time for the Maric administration to stop stalling and start recognizing how to make UConn faculty, and this community as a whole, flourish. 

The UConn AAUP is a union organization representing faculty, researchers, academic assistants, coaches and other athletic personnel.