United University Professions

Labor-Management Agenda

Thursday, October 15, 2020

1:30-2:30pm

Items of Collegiality:

1. UUP acknowledges the instrumental role management and all folks at Cortland have played in maintaining a campus with fewer than 100 positive cases of Corona Virus during the period ending September 25.

• UUP acknowledges inclusion of a UUP representative on the COVID 19 Coordinating Committee.

New Business:

1. UUP requests a report on the financial stability of the college:
   1. Where can UUP find SUNY Cortland’s 2020-2021 budget information to review?

• What budget shortfall, if any, is Cortland experiencing in fall 2020? Spring 2021?

• Precisely what amount of allocation has been allotted to SUNY Cortland? What amount has been received to date?

• Does the college anticipate any additional or supplemental allocation from the state at this point?

• Can management characterize any stresses placed upon particular budget lines, such as temporary services, also receives, or extra service?

• Are rank-to-rank promotions that are accompanied by an increase in base salary being honored at this time?

• Can you provide an update on student enrollment – e.g. how many students have withdrawn, what indications we’ve had about enrollment for the spring?

• Draft Policy: Course Planning Cancellation Guidelines:
  • At what point has/will the draft become official college policy?

• Can you provide some additional clarification regarding the purpose of the policy, should it be implemented, as it relates to the rationale briefly explored in the August 2020 LM meeting?

• How will the policy be implemented? Will every lower division course be cancelled if enrollment does not reach 20 students? Upper division undergraduate courses whose enrollment fails to reach 20? Graduate courses whose enrollment fails to reach 10?

• If exceptions can be made, as the draft stipulates, how and under what circumstances will an exception be made, especially an “additional exception” that is not directly related to students’ needs to graduate?

• Will exceptions be made if student need dictates, regardless of faculty member assigned to the course?

• Under what circumstances will courses that have multiple sections be consolidated? Will this apply uniformly to all courses taught? If so, what considerations will be made for faculty workload and compensation?

• Can you provide some clarification regarding what management means by “shared resources when appropriate” in the draft of the policy?

• Curtailment of the in-person Tuesday-Thursday classes:
  • Can management discuss the considerations you have given to President Pittsley’s recommendations in her follow-up to 9/17 LM email (briefly outlined below):
    • UUP asks management to empower their faculty, who would never make a cavalier decision about moving a course to 100% remote learning, to make those decisions.

1. UUP encourages management be flexible in empowering faculty to take a reasonable amount of time (perhaps including cancelling classes for a day or two) to modify their courses due to this new time restraint, and inform their Deans and Chairs of their need to do so;

1. UUP encourages management to hold widely publicized trainings for personnel committee members (present and future) and Chairs to be flexible in accepting and holding harmless faculty who must make alterations to their workload in order to meet the demands of the semester, and this academic year; 

1. UUP asks for flexibility in documenting these changes in their annual reports.

• April 30 Memorandum of Understanding on Tenure Clock Stops and Personnel Actions:

1. How will the campus put into practice this MOU, in terms of communication and implementation?

• How will evaluators be advised to proceed if campus or departmental policies contradict the MOU?

1. Faculty are required to perform CTEs on a timetable (e.g. once every third time they teach a course (Handbook 260.02, I.13), or more often based on departmental policies). If the person would have been required to perform CTEs in the spring of 2020 under ordinary circumstances, what will the expectations be for them?

1. The present crisis may have serious effects on scholarly activity, including publishers shutting down, delay of crucial fieldwork, and the like. If this has a long-term impact on a person’s research, will the campus still require three scholarly achievements in that case?

• How many members of UUP are currently working in interim positions, and for how long have those members been working in those positions?
  • Do those folks who are serving in interim positions have written performance programs, expectations, or duties?