Author: taupaft

TAUP Celebrates Pride

We try to be inclusive, and sometimes it goes very wrong.

When the movie Brokeback Mountain came out in 2005, a very well-meaning colleague approached me about it.

“Hey, I saw your movie this weekend,” he said.

This person was trying to be friendly. Brokeback Mountain is not “my movie.”

Sixteen years later, we’ve made progress toward LGBTQ inclusivity in higher education.

More often, we come to campus with the desire for inclusivity and understanding. Sometimes, we get the wrong result.

Consider the use of pronouns – he, she, they.

Encourage the use of these pronouns. But make them optional.

Regardless of their gender, some students may not want to share their pronouns, and that’s OK.

We don’t want to force someone to out themselves in a classroom. The same goes for interpersonal conversations with students and colleagues.

If a student identifies as transgender in a one-on-one conversation, absolutely avoid calling them out in class as transgender.

“So now for the trans experience, Ed do you want to speak?”

Often, it’s the people we’re trying to help that can be made to feel uncomfortable.

Next, look at your course materials and your assignment sheet. Do the instructions say to “write an essay on his or her contributions to the field of science”?

Often, I steer away from pronouns because I can make a mistake.

If I make a mistake even once, I know I’m going to read about it on my student feedback forms. And, we’ve all seen this in the SFFs:

“Please comment on the instructor’s willingness to create an inclusive environment for all students in this course, with respect to disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, national origin, political viewpoint, race, religion, and sexual orientation.”

No one likes seeing a negative comment in this area of the SFFs. No one wants to hurt or make students uncomfortable. We also don’t want students to carry this hurt through the end of the semester, believing that they have no recourse but to say something on the SFFs. This might be avoided with a simple conversation.

Take a few minutes during your first class to talk about inclusivity. Tell your students: “If anything I ever say rubs you the wrong way, please communicate with me. I never want to make you feel uncomfortable. And if I ever do, please correct me, either in class or privately. I will thank you for pointing out my mistake.”

Your first class is a great place for that conversation.

Inclusivity is something we all need to work on every day of our lives.

-Brad Windhauser, College of Liberal Arts
www.bradwindhauser.com

TAUP’s Formal Statement on Vaccinations

As a union, we believe that Temple University has an obligation to protect the health and well-being of its faculty, staff, and surrounding communities. While case counts of COVID-19 are decreasing, it remains a continuing public health threat in the Philadelphia area and the nation at large. Vaccines provide the highest assurance of safety for our members as we return to in-person work, as well as for the students we teach, and are now widely available. Therefore we as a union—in conjunction with Temple’s Faculty Senate—call on the Temple administration to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for all faculty, students, and staff before returning to campus at the start of Fall Semester 2021.

 

We understand that some students, faculty, and staff may be hesitant about COVID-19 vaccination. Students, faculty, and staff have real concerns about the interaction between their communities and the public health establishment, and we must acknowledge the racist history of the medical community and the American healthcare system. These decades of mistreatment have real and lasting impacts on public trust around vaccination. Additionally, some students, faculty, and staff may have concerns about the fact that the vaccine has been granted Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA, but not yet full approval.

 

However, both medical expertise and large amounts of data have shown that the vaccines currently available are both effective and safe. The risks to faculty, staff, and students from a partially unvaccinated population are high enough that TAUP feels that concerns raised by individual faculty, staff, and students must operate on a case-by-case basis within a general mandate.

 

Therefore, TAUP calls on Temple University to require proof of immunization from COVID-19, subject to exception for medical conditions, religious belief or strong moral or ethical conviction, for all faculty, students, and staff before returning to any campus beginning at the start of Fall Semester 2021, unless working remotely or participating in online learning.

A hard copy version of the contract is now available

Sick days, merit increases, tuition exchanges, job title ranks and pay rate, work-life balance requests — securing union benefits was hard.

Now, you can get them in hard copy.

The printed TAUP union contract contains negotiated benefits and protections. The print contract has information on job title, rank, and pay rates, and much, much more.

More than just your rights, the contract is a reference manual for work at Temple.  You should have a printed copy. You should make sure your chair/supervisor and dean have copies. And, you can support the union by making sure everyone knows what’s in their contract.
Then, we’re all on the same (printed) page.

Pick up your copy at the TAUP office, 721 Ritter Annex.