Apparently this has been going on for a while. They are asking for supporters to show up at tomorrow’s session. Here’s hoping our new administration is handling it more competently than Scott Coltrane, Doug Park, and Harrang et al did last time. The GTF union web page is here.
Posts tagged as “GTFs”
2/23/2018:
Senate President Sinclair broke the first rule of Vegas when he mentioned the Ice Bar escapade at a recent Senate meeting – on video. Now the press is on the trail:
Thanks Chris, next year was my turn, and you’ve gone and ruined it. How is the Senate going to find a new president-elect with this kind of scandal out there?
Fortunately our Public Records Office are experts at delaying and frustrating public records requests. I wonder what their excuse is for denying this one? Some of the long history of Duck junkets and public records is below:
3/31/2015: Hubin’s PR office finally gives Tublitz the BCS championship junket lists
The Chicago faculty eventually followed the UO faculty’s leadership on Academic Freedom and Free Speech, by adopting a verbose and watered down version of the UO policies. Now their grad students are following the long established UO GTFF by voting 2.3 to 1 for a union. Colleen Flaherty of InsideHigherEd…
I assume the GTFF website will be updated soon. Meanwhile Diane Dietz has the story in the RG here: UO President Michael Schill, in his year-in-review in June, said he was pleased with the year’s quick settlements with United Academics and the Service Employees International Union. Schill’s initiatives to build the…
Just kidding. I have no reason to think that noted big-tobacco lawyer Sharon Rudnick or her HLGR partner and zoning variance expert Jeff Matthews will ever again work for UO. And, in my opinion, the rumors that FAR Tim Gleason will be on the admin team are clearly anti-university. But negotiations between the administration and the GTFF…
2/5/2015 update: A reader passes along this Brad Shelton powerpoint, which among other things documents the $1.5M Moffitt to Moffitt transfer: The bottom line though, is that there’s plenty of water in the well. Or at least that’s what Brad Shelton was telling UO’s academic deans in September: I wonder…
12/10/2014: The Emergency Senate meeting is on, for 3PM Today, 115 Lawrence.
UO Board committee meetings start at 10AM today, here.
Updated pretty often. Days 1-4 here, Days 5-6 here. Also read the UAUO website here, UAUO Facebook page, here, GTFF website here, GTFF Facebook here. Not to mention Tobin Klinger and the UO PR flacks on their $500K “Around the 0” blog, if you can find it on google.
Dec 9 updates:
Updated pretty often. Days 1-4 here. Also read the UAUO Facebook page, here. 12/7/2014: – Senate’s Academic Integrity Task Force takes swift action to revoke Blandy/Altman/Baskin strike grading diktats, here. – UO redacts HLGR invoices for GTFF work: When you make a public records request to the Oregon Attorney General for…
Updated way too often:
12/5/2014:
6:11 PM: Lillis calls Coltrane back for 3-day loss on plans for Saturday mediation:
No more talks til Tuesday. The Board of Trustees meetings start Wednesday, and presumably they’re trying to put on a strong offensive show for their most important fan, Phil Knight:
On FridayDec 5, 2014, at 6:11 PM, President’s Office <[email protected]> wrote:
Campus Community,
I’m disappointed to report that we have ended another day of mediation with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation without agreement. We had hope of bringing this issue to a close prior to finals week, but our next mediation is now scheduled for Tuesday.
[blah, Go Ducks, blah, blah]
Thank you for your continued work and understanding. Scott Coltrane, Interim President
– 5:00 PM. The GTFF website reports no deal yet, mediation will restart tomorrow:
Both parties agreed it’s important for the teams to collaborate in whatever ways might be possible without having mixed and conflicting messages ending up public and having to mend fences in the morning. The teams agreed to confidentiality for this round of mediation. We are still working through things at the moment and where ever we end up, we’ll be taking that to our Executive Council for discussion and for our stewards to take out to our members.
I’m still waiting for Hubin to release the latest data on how many billable hours Coltrane is paying Frohnmayer and Geller’s HLGR law firm for their successful efforts to drag this strike out past the last day for undergrads to get GTF help for finals week.
– I put in a PR request into Dave Hubin’s office for the latest legal and consulting billings on Monday. My guess is he’ll delay these until the GTFF bargaining ends, just as IR is hiding the latest info on raises for JH admins. But bargaining for the faculty contract starts in January, and will be helpful for showing the self-serving priorities of the JH administration:
12/4/2014:
– Scott Coltrane is so worried about revealing excessive athletic donations during the GTFF strike that Dave Hubin is redacting even the most basic information as “trade secrets”. Camilla Mortenson has the story in the Eugene Weekly, here:
Under President Lariviere, UO would release all the records, including the detailed gift contracts, e.g. Phil Knight’s for the athlete-only Jock Box.
– 10:00 PM: Admins panic over JH sit-in, call cops on the undergrads. UOPD officers were called in today to evict undergraduate GTFF sympathizers from Johnson Hall, according to this Kaylee Tornay report in the ODE. The police refused, on the sensible grounds that the students weren’t breaking any laws. But the administration seems to be threatening student conduct code discipline, if I get the story right. Since UO’s Academic Freedom and Free Speech policies cover students, any such efforts would be pure intimidation, or panic, on the administration’s part:
The University supports free speech with vigor, including the right of presenters to offer opinion, the right of the audience to hear what is presented, and the right of protesters to engage with speakers in order to challenge ideas, so long as the protest does not disrupt or stifle the free exchange of ideas.
– 7:45 PM: The RG reports no settlement tonight. Mediation will resume at 11AM tomorrow. Many undergrads will have no final help or lab sessions before finals begin Monday – if there are finals. Faculty will be left to deal with the chaos. Meanwhile the newly established Senate Task Force on Academic Integrity has been working on an legitimate alternative to Doug Blandy and Barbara Altmann’s “Wizard of Oz” grading scheme. And fwiw, here’s official JH strike communique #253:
Date: December 4, 2014 at 7:58:19 PM PST
From: “President’s Office” <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
Subject: Mediation continues tomorrow
Dear Campus Community,
After a long day of mediation with the university and the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation sharing confidential proposals, talks have concluded for the evening.
While I hope for a swift resolution, I’m proud of our bargaining team for staying at the table to work to find a solution and we look ahead to another mediation session tomorrow.
While we continue bargaining, we remain fully prepared to meet the needs of our students going into finals week. A team of volunteers is ready to proctor exams and continuity plans are in place to ensure grades are submitted in a timely fashion.
Both parties have agreed to keep details of today’s exchange confidential, but despite the lack of resolution to date, the university remains committed to the collective bargaining process.
We appreciate the respectful discourse that has surrounded this challenging issue and the thousands of faculty, staff and graduate students who have remained focused on carrying out our mission. They have continued to work tirelessly to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our students.
For complete information on academic continuity planning and negotiations, please visit http://provost.uoregon.edu/gtff-negotiation.
Sincerely, Scott Coltrane, Interim President
– UO Alumna donates $10K to the GTFF strike fund. Heartfelt letter of support and link to the donate button, here.
– 1:00 AM: Was “X” grade flip-flop about football players eligibility?
The original “confidential” Academic Continuity Plan recommended that faculty consider assigning “X” grades until the GTFF strike was over, final work could be graded and legitimate grades could be assigned
A few weeks later, the admin’s changed their mind, and we got this message:
Academic Continuity Planning Update 11/25/14:
Colleagues,
Thank you for your ongoing engagement during the preparations for the upcoming GTFF strike. Below you will find additional information about grading options, pre-strike polling, changes to Blackboard, and attendance tracking.
Sincerely, Barbara Altmann, Doug Blandy, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
X Grades
As stated in the November 21, 2014, message, university leaders believed earlier that X grades might be a viable solution; however, upon further investigation with the registrar and financial aid staff, it was determined that X grades would be viewed as non-passing grades for financial aid purposes. Depending on each individual student’s situation, the X grade may imperil that individual’s financial aid. …
During the Senate debate Wed, John Bonine (Law) quoted wording from UO’s own financial aid website that conflicted with the administration’s statement above. So what’s really going on with this X flip, and the discipline that CAS Dean Marcus now threatening for those that use the X?.
The NCAA football championships. It turns out that the X does not meet the “satisfactorily completed” standard the NCAA requires for athletes to play in the post-season football championship game. UO’s last regularly scheduled exam is Dec 12. The NCAA then gives UO 14 days to certify that post-season athletes have satisfactorily completed their (minimal) academic requirement of 6 credits for the fall quarter. No satisfactory grade, no play.
This does not affect the Dec 5th PAC-12 Championship, but it does matter for the Jan 1 Football Championship playoffs and, should it come to that, the championship game on Jan 12th.
Here’s NCAA Bylaw 14.1.10.2:
To be eligible to compete in a postseason event (e.g., conference tournament, bowl game, National Invitation Tournament, NCAA championship) that occurs between regular terms (including summer) a student-athlete, in his or her final season of competition in the applicable sport, shall have satisfactorily completed six-semester or six-quarter hours of academic credit the preceding regular academic term of full-time enrollment (see Bylaw 14.4.3.1). An institution shall have 14 business days (regardless of the date in which grades are posted or submitted) after the date of the last scheduled examination listed in the institution’s official calendar for the term that is ending to certify completion of the six-semester or six-quarter hours of academic credit. (Emphasis added).
12/3/2014:
– New RG report from Diane Dietz here, with many interviews with undergrads. She gives Coltrane enough rope to say a few things he’s probably already regretting, but the undergrad quotes are what make it well worth reading. And in other news, SANIPAC apparently told UO today that its drivers (Teamsters Local #206), will honor the GTFF picket lines and stop picking up UO’s garbage. Game over.
– “Coltrane lauds “respectful discourse” as Marcus calls in dissident Dept Heads for discipline.” New massmail from Interim President Coltrane lauds the Senate and GTFF for “respectful discourse” – his definition seems a little different from the one UO’s English composition instructors use – as rumors fly that department heads who refuse to cooperate with the “voluntary grading suggestions” in the now public Johnson Hall “Academic Continuity Plan” are being called in by Interim CAS Dean Andrew Marcus, and told they will face discipline. Respectful discipline, I’m sure.
The UO Senate isn’t going to let this happen easily. They voted unanimously today to use their authority over academic matters to create a Senate “Academic Integrity Task Force” to rewrite Coltrane’s ACP, ASAP.
At the same time he’s on the respect thing, Coltrane is claiming the strike is not causing much disruption, and telling instructors that “staff volunteers” (some rumored to be UOPD) will be checking up on classes again tomorrow.
The good news? The GTFF president has flown to DC to meet with Pete DeFazio, Governor Kitzhaber (who controls UO Board appointments) is ramping up the pressure on Coltrane and the Board to end this nonsense strait-away, and the state mediator is going to give it another try Thursday:
Date: December 3, 2014 at 6:31:03 PM PST
From: “President’s Office” <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected]
Subject: Mediation resumes tomorrow
Students and colleagues,
As we mark the second day of striking by the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, I am pleased to report the discourse has continued to be respectful. We are optimistic that this trend will continue tomorrow across campus, and at the bargaining table. We are also confident that we will continue to meet the needs of our students during this difficult time.
Contract negotiations can be emotionally charged events, and ours is no exception. One thing that has been demonstrated is the passion that we all share for education of our students. I want to thank all who have worked to ensure that we continue to meet the needs of our students.
Dozens of UO employees have volunteered as course monitors to each GTF-led class, to ensure all students are given an explanation of the situation, should the GTF instructor not be present. Over the past two days, course monitors have reported that only 22 percent of scheduled courses resulted in students arriving to find no instructor. On Thursday and Friday, we are fully prepared with volunteers to carry out this critical duty.
Picketing GTFs are passionately conveying their message and we appreciate the continued respectful discourse that has been witnessed throughout campus today. The university is committed to ensuring that picketing does not disrupt our campus environments.
Tomorrow morning negotiations will resume and the university remains hopeful that an agreement will be reached that meets the needs of all involved. Thank you for your commitment to our university.
Sincerely, Scott Coltrane, Interim President
– GTFF sets up a link to donate to their strike fund, here. “These funds will help offset costs associated with strike supplies, legal costs, or lost wages.”
– The Presidential Skybox at Autzen – mostly paid for with undergrad tuition money – costs more than twice as much as the GTFF sick leave plan:
– From an email the administration is sending to undergrads in classes cancelled because of striking GTFs:
“Until further notice, there will be no formal instruction in your class. The classroom will still be available at the usual time, and you are welcome to use it for study groups or work sessions. We encourage you to keep up with your syllabus to the best of your ability: read the book on your own, try the homework problems if there are any, and if not pick out some representative problems from the textbook.”
– InsideHigherEd has a long story on the strike, UO’s academic standards, and Coltrane’s research, from Kaitlin Mulhere, with many interesting quotes. The admin’s hired spin doctors aren’t getting much play, compared to the GTFF leaders and their faculty and undergrad allies. Read it all, here.
12/4/2014 update: Paid UO PR flack Jennifer Winters has now posted the admin spin for Wednesday’s Senate meeting on “Around the 0”, if you care enough to google it.
Short version: Coltrane got raked over the coals again for his administration’s secretive “Academic Continuity Plan”. He added to the fire by threatening, not very subtlely, to discipline faculty who did not submit grades by Dec 19. The Senate began the process of restoring trust and confidence in UO’s academic integrity by taking responsibility for this away from VP’s Blandy and Altmann.
The Senate approved new courses, and agreed to set up former provost Jim Bean with a $250K sinecure running a new “Sports Product Design” MS degree program, which now goes to the HECC for consideration. We also approved a permanent Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, and worked through and approved the last of the revisions to the Student Conduct code that VP Robin Holmes had neglected for years. All in all a very productive meeting.
12/3/2014 update: Official Senate Agenda for the 3PM Wed meeting is here. Coltrane will speak and get asked questions about the strike, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Senate also took further action on the strike. It will be an interesting and important meeting. I’ll try and live-blog a little:
Senate Meeting Agenda – December 3, 2014: Watch Live | Senate Agenda
115 Lawrence, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Update: The Register Guard can’t make sense of Coltrane’s actions either. Story here:
The GTFs went into a last-ditch mediation session with UO officials today with a sense of optimism, [UO biology grad student and bargaining team member Steve McAllister] said.
The dispute had winnowed down to a single issue — the union’s demand for two weeks paid medical and parental leave. University bargainers proposed a way out in the form of creating a $150,000 graduate student hardship fund that students could tap for $1,000 or $1,500 in the case of illness or the birth of a child.
The rub: The university refused to write the specifics of how the hardship fund would operate, including details about eligibility, into the proposed two-year contract, union leaders said. …
The university did not clarify why it doesn’t support detailing the hardship fund operations in the contract for the GTFs, and then administer the fund for those graduate students without fellowships in an identical manner.
The graduate student federation is adamant that the terms belong in a legally enforceable contract, McAllister said.
“What we basically have today is they’ve said, ‘Hey, we’ll do this great program for you’ and we’ve said, ‘Great. Do you promise?’ And they’ve said, ‘Well, no. We don’t.’
Meanwhile, the breakdown in trust in the UO administration has driven another spike in UO Matters readership:
This is not a healthy situation. The UO administration should be a credible voice on important matters like this. People shouldn’t have to rely on an opinionated blogger like me, who has to pay for UO public records with occasional raids on my scotch budget.
Unfortunately, the millions of dollars that Johnson Hall has poured into PR flacks and “Around the 0”, coupled with the disingenuous and confused email messages on this strike from Scott Coltrane, Frances Bronet, Barbara Altmann and Doug Blandy, and Dave Hubin’s willingness to abuse Oregon’s public records law to hide information, have, in Scott Coltrane’s passive words, meant that “Trust has broken down”. Presumably Coltrane will present a plan for fixing that at Wednesday’s Senate meeting. But will anyone trust him?
12/1/2014 update: Coltrane won’t sign, GTFF will strike, and “Trust has broken down”.
Yeah, maybe your $300-an-hour zoning lawyer can tell you how that happened. Although I think it will be hard to top the explanation your $14,000 a year English composition instructors gave you, now in the Emerald, here.
From: President’s Office
Subject: Mediation concluded, strike expected
Dear colleagues and students,
It pains me to send this update about the negotiations with the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation. Mediation has failed and regrettably we are expecting the GTFF to strike beginning tomorrow.
I care deeply about each student and employee here. I have been hopeful every day that this could be avoided. Unfortunately, the bargaining teams met today and could not reach an agreement.
We have been negotiating for a year. The university has moved toward the union proposals at almost every negotiation and mediation. Most labor negotiations include give and take. Today’s offer included a hardship fund that would provide financial support for graduate students in need. Nevertheless the GTFF authorized a strike vote months ago in the spring, and have reiterated that position repeatedly. Trust has broken down and rebuilding that trust will be a priority when this is over.
Tomorrow will be a significant day on campus. It is dead week and academic life will go on even if many of our GTFs strike. We respect each person’s right to choose for him- or herself about whether to participate. It is one of the great things about our country. Please be respectful of one another.
For our students, we have a job to do and serving students is our focus. Final exams will be held and graded, and student grades will be entered. And we will all look forward toward winter term.
Sincerely,
Scott Coltrane
Interim President
11/29/2014 1:11 PM update: GTFF to Bronet: Put sick leave in the CBA, and it’s a deal
The GTFF’s response to the latest proposal from the administration is here. The only remaining sticking point? They want the details in the CBA. I’m no $300-an-hour zoning-easement lawyer, but in economics we teach that this is just the sort of thing that contracts like the CBA are for. Here’s hoping Provost Bronet gives Jeff Matthews appropriate instructions soon:
The GTFF’s executive council voted that they could be willing to accept the fund as an alternative to paid leave. However, to do so, critical language about the fund must be in our collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The GTFF proposed language to do so and was willing to discuss alterations that would work for the Administration. However, the Administration still refused to accept any CBA language to guarantee the rules of how the fund might operate.
Question: Why does it need to be in the CBA?
Creating a CBA is the reason we hold negotiations. It is an enforceable, legally binding agreement between employer (UO) and employees (GTFs). Having a legally binding contract is essential in any agreement, so it can be used for future references and there is something in place in case of anything going wrong between two parties. More information on these types of agreements can be found here. The language that is written into the CBA must be followed by both sides. If either side violates the CBA, formal procedures exist to correct that, including a third-party arbitrator to correct any violations. Working out a deal, without any guarantee of follow through, undermines the intent of the collective bargaining process. Writing new policy for graduate students does not guarantee the needs of its graduate employees are being addressed.
The Administration is unwilling to include any CBA language for the fund other than (1) it exists, (2) there is at least $150,000 in the fund, and (3) GTFs, because they are grad students, can access the fund. So, the only legally binding portion of the fund would be its existence, size, and the fact that GTFs can access it. The rules of the fund, all details about how the fund operates and how grad students can access the fund, are left up to the Administration. That is not good enough.
11/28/2014 1:40 update: Provost Bronet to faculty, students: Shelter in Place until Monday
12/1/2014 update: Our administrators are burning a lot of bridges on this strike. Why? At this point the admin team has agreed to everything almost everything the GTF wanted. All that’s left is for Coltrane and Bronet to put it in writing. They don’t want to. This is silly, of course it has to be in writing.
Having been slapped down by the Senate on their attempt to get the faculty to weaken academic standards to help the admins break a GTF strike, our administration is now working on turning the undergrads against the grad students. Destroy everything, just so Scott Coltrane doesn’t have to admit he should have given up on sick leave back in August?
From: “Interim Tykeson Dean W. Andrew Marcus”
Date: December 1, 2014 at 11:47 AM PST
Subject: Attending your classes and submitting assignments as planned
Reply-To: “Interim Tykeson Dean W. Andrew Marcus”
Dear Students,
You are receiving this note because you are a student in one of the 45 programs that make up the College of Arts & Sciences, or because you are undeclared and receive advising through the college. You may be wondering what to do if Graduate Teaching Fellows go on strike this Tuesday, December 2. I advise you to attend all your classes as scheduled, and to submit all course requirements as stipulated by your instructors.
We are working diligently to minimize the impact on students should there be a strike. But various disruptions, including an instructor not attending a class, may still occur.
If you experience a disruption in your classroom, lab, or other academic experience due to a work stoppage, you may let us know by emailing [email protected] or calling 541-346-3902 with the course number and name, meeting time, instructor’s name, and class location.
We in the College of Arts and Sciences are dedicated first and foremost to ensuring that you achieve your academic objectives for this term.
Thank you.
W. Andrew Marcus
Interim Tykeson Dean
College of Arts and Sciences
11/28/2014 update: Administration fails to poll faculty and GTF’s on strike plans
There’s no sign that the administration’s team of well-paid strategic communicators got their act together on today’s promised (threatened?) survey of the faculty and GTFs about their strike plans. So instead I’m posting this letter from Professor Matthew Dennis to his History 201 students, with permission. Full letter here:
…
11/27/2014 update: Administration to poll faculty on how to maintain academic standards during strike
Just kidding, there’s no evidence that the Senate legislation or all that heartfelt debate has had the slightest impact on Coltrane’s plans to degrade academic standards to make it easier to break a GTFF strike. To the contrary, the administration has moved from what AVP Ken Doxsee called “suggestions” to requirements, as in the new instructions about not assigning X or I grades. Combined with the new diktat below, this leaves faculty with essentially only one choice: assign some sort of letter grade based on work completed so far, even if that work is a small fraction of what is laid out in their syllabus, or even if that work would normally lead to a grade of incomplete.
Apparently they *will* be polling us (and the GTFs?) on Friday to ask us how we intend to comply with the administration’s increasingly desperate and confused instructions. The results will be “confidential” of course, unless the administration decides they will make for good PR spin:
Update: Looks rainy, but there’s plenty of room inside the lobby, as the UO Coalition discovered last spring.
Coltrane could have settled this a month ago and saved our department heads a lot of time, and the GTFF a lot of megaphone batteries. But no:
Thanksgiving Day Update: 62-year-old university president fails at ultimatum bargaining with 25-year-old students. His lawyers cash in again.
11/30/2014: Dave Hubin and Doug Park still hiding docs on GTFF bargaining Here’s a page of the invoices from the faculty union bargaining. Heavily redacted, but at least Gottfredson would release them. UO has become even less transparent under Coltrane: When the UO administration wants the public to know things that make themselves…
11/28/2014 Editor’s note: As of Friday, this letter has been downloaded more times than anything I’ve ever posted, except a few documents from various athletics scandals. As one commenter notes, “When you’ve lost your composition instructors, you’ve lost the war.” 11/25/2014: My headline, not theirs, but I think it captures…