{"id":8068,"date":"2026-05-22T08:58:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/buffalo\/?p=8068"},"modified":"2026-05-22T09:08:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T13:08:33","slug":"uup-chapter-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/buffalo\/2026\/05\/22\/uup-chapter-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"UUP Chapter Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Colleagues,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Wednesday the Chapter Board has made some decisions that the membership should be aware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1)&nbsp; Kevin Ragland has resigned from Treasurer effective June 1.&nbsp; &nbsp;Kevin has been outstanding in this position and we are sorry to see him go.&nbsp; We wish him all the best.&nbsp; Thank you Kevin for your years of service and loyalty to our Chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2)&nbsp; The Board has appointed Jennifer Russo as the next Treasurer so that Kevin can work with her to transfer accounts and duties.&nbsp; &nbsp;Please welcome Jennifer aboard!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3)&nbsp; Melinda Lemke has stepped down as our Grievance Officer for Academics effective May 21, 2026.&nbsp; &nbsp;Melinda has been a strong advocate for faculty and she will be missed.&nbsp; She has agreed to serve as a consultant, but can no longer spend the time performing this position.&nbsp; This is completely understandable as more and more demands are placed upon faculty.&nbsp; Melinda, thank you for your advocacy for faculty and agreeing to help our Chapter better understand the nuances that faculty face.&nbsp; Thank you for your service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">4) If you are interested in serving as the Academic Grievance Officer, please let me know by emailing me at uupkatkielar@pm.me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">5) As we&#8217;ve communicated in April, the physical office in the Commons is now closed and we are operating virtually.&nbsp; &nbsp;Our Chapter Assistant, Kristen, is out on medical leave and will return the end of December 2026.&nbsp; &nbsp;Currently, I will be available Wednesdays and Thursdays to conduct UUP business between the hours of 7 am and 3:30 pm.&nbsp; &nbsp;I can <strong>absolutely not do any union business<\/strong> during my obligation time on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays.&nbsp; &nbsp;We are now in the process of hiring a temp to answer phones Mondays and Tuesdays.&nbsp; This is on ongoing situation and as we stabilize our office hours I ask that everyone be patient and use email or leave a phone message.&nbsp; I will keep the membership informed as to any changes in hours.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">6) The Board approved a document entitled &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/u.pcloud.link\/publink\/show?code=XZXJiU5ZnzN4T3MyPJSECqA10F25XLSjAb8V\">Communications Management Guidance<\/a>&#8220;.\u00a0 This document is being shared with you in an effort to protect your personal emails, as well as the data the office is responsible for.\u00a0 I want to thank both Daniel Schweitzer and Melinda Lemke for their work in drafting the document.\u00a0 This took a great deal of time and thought.\u00a0 \u00a0I also want to thank the Board for their efforts and concern to protect our members data.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">7)&nbsp; &nbsp;We are anxiously awaiting news on the contract and I&#8217;m hearing really good vibes that we are close to a resolution.&nbsp; We will ask members for a ratification vote once the state and the contract committee reach a finalized agreement.&nbsp; &nbsp;<strong>Contract votes will be mailed to your home address and it&#8217;s important that we show our strength as a union through the number of votes we have on our contract<\/strong>.&nbsp; &nbsp; If you need to update your home address, please do so through UB&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buffalo.edu\/administrative-services\/for-faculty-staff\/my-employment-information.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Update Information Website<\/a>.&nbsp; UUP gets our active members addresses from UB.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">8) We are approaching Memorial Day and are leaving a very busy Spring semester behind (Yes!&nbsp; We made it).&nbsp; &nbsp;I wish to close this correspondence, wishing our 10 month faculty a great summer!&nbsp; For our 12 month employees, I hope that you are able to take much needed time off for rest.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As we go through the summer and into the fall, I&#8217;m anticipating many changes that we&#8217;ll need our members support on.&nbsp; We should have an idea of who our new President will be, as well as gear up for impending NYS budget changes for the 27-28 year.&nbsp; I&#8217;m hoping that we will have a physical office by the fall.&nbsp; We have many storms ahead that we will encounter and I hope together we can weather them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All please have a great summer!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Best,<br>Kathleen Kielar<br>Chapter President<br>UUP Buffalo Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colleagues, On Wednesday the Chapter Board has made some decisions that the membership should be aware of. 1)&nbsp; Kevin Ragland has resigned from Treasurer effective June 1.&nbsp; &nbsp;Kevin has been outstanding in this position and we are sorry to see him go.&nbsp; We wish him all the best.&nbsp; Thank you Kevin for your years of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buffalo-center-news","category-membership"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UUP Chapter Updates - UUP Buffalo Center<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uuphost.org\/buffalo\/2026\/05\/22\/uup-chapter-updates\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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