UUP SUNY Old Westbury Chapter

by Carol Quirke

At the UUP Delegate Assembly held in Rye, New York, on October 24-26, 2019, UUP’s Vice President for Academics, Jamie Dangler, discussed issues of concern for academics, many of which equally affect professional members.

1. The June 2018 U.S. Supreme Court Janus v. AFSCME decision abolished public unions’ ability to collect the equivalent of union dues in fees from non-members. Statewide, and at Old Westbury, UUP has retained nearly all full-time members. Part-time, contingent membership has dropped to 59%, however, at the state level. What can UUP do locally and statewide to remain a strong advocate for contingent members and retain their membership?
2. SUNY Online is a new initiative to develop massive, online programs that scale up quickly to 1,000 students, with a projection to 3,000 students per program in a few years. (You may be seeing their ads on social media, where SUNY is advertising heavily: https://www.suny.edu/online/#exploreDegrees). SUNY has invested heavily in this initiative, providing students online “personal coaches,” or “personal concierges,” and enhancing statewide IT resources. However, SUNY has provided no local resources or funding for this initiative, which it believes can capture thousands of students hoping to complete a degree. In one instance, a campus outsourced the program provision to a private company. Though Old Westbury currently has no programs slated for SUNY Online, Ed Bever (School of Professional Studies) and Chandra Shehigian (Informational Technology) are participating in a statewide UUP group aimed at identifying and articulating members’ concerns or issues with SUNY Online.
3. Course evaluations are a new concern for UUP. Increasingly, studies document the racial and gender bias of course evaluations. As they have gone online, many colleges are experiencing extremely low response rates, limiting the evaluations’ validity. And in some instances college administrations use evaluations in punitive ways. UUP has joined a lawsuit along with an Empire State College faculty member around a denial of tenure case related to course evaluations.
4. UUP is supporting Austerity University, a two-day conference on March 6-7, 2020, to be held at SUNY New Paltz that will examine the state and federal divestment from public colleges and universities. New Paltz is home to the group Radical University Professionals (RUP), a second co-sponsor of the conference. Additionally, RUP is sponsoring a December action for more public funding for New York State higher education. public funding for New York State higher education.