Please see the following message from Statewide President, Fred Kowal, regarding Tenure Clock Extension:
Dear Colleagues,
UUP and SUNY have entered a Memorandum of Understanding to address concerns of members about the potential impact of the COIVD 19 crisis on teaching, research, scholarship or other work that could potentially impact upcoming reviews for tenure, permanent appointment, reappointment or promotion. This agreement provides for clock extensions and possible exclusions of certain types of evaluative material from review processes. The Memorandum of Understanding is attached. Key points of the agreement include:
- Academics who are currently serving in tenure-track academic positions who have not yet been permanently appointed and who are not currently up for review will receive an automatic one-year extension of their time to continuing appointment (also referred to as their tenure clock). Tenure-track academics who do not wish to have their tenure clocks extended may elect to opt out of the automatic one-year extension and be considered for tenure on their original schedule. This extension will not require a change in current academic rank.
- Professionals who are coming up for review in the next two years shall be granted an extension of their time to permanent appointment (or permanent appointment clock) of up to six months if requested by the employee. Such a clock stop shall be granted by moving the employee to qualified professional rank for the time requested.
- Any employee (whether full or part-time) who taught or provided educational support such as tutoring or counseling during the Spring 2020 semester may elect not to include Spring 2020 evaluations, peer teaching observations, and/or curricular materials from this semester in future reappointment, promotion, or continuing appointment/permanent appointment review materials. The agreement provides that the exclusion of these materials shall not reflect negatively on the individuals review.
The clock extension for tenure track academics requires amendment of the relevant Board of Trustees Policies. The Board of Trustees passed the necessary resolution to accomplish this at it meeting Wednesday afternoon (5/6/20). That resolution is also attached.
Finally, we have updated the COVID 19 Q&A which is posted on the UUP website to include information about: the clock stop MOU, the extension of the telecommuting agreement through July 17, as well as other updates. That Q&A can be found at https://uupinfo.org/resources/covid19/pdf/UUP_COVID19_QA.pdf
Please distribute this information as widely as possible to your membership.
Thank you,
Fred