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Welcome back to a new semester, the first of this new decade! We enter this term with a new contract in place, committed to its enforcement and to building on its gains. Some of the new provisions of the contract will roll out immediately while others will take some time. During this semester:
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Printed versions of the new contract will be available for every person represented by TAUP and everyone should receive one. They will be distributed by an individual in your department once they are available. If you would like to help in the distribution of contracts in your department, please email jsiegelaft@gmail.com.
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Full time academic professionals, faculty and librarians should receive their first raise, retroactive from October 1, 2019, in their January or February paycheck. Please check your paystub, and if you believe you have not received what is due to you, you can contact your departmental administrator or Temple’s Human Resources department. If they tell you that you’ve been paid correctly but you still believe there is a problem, contact TAUP.
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Before or at the beginning of the semester, adjuncts should have access to a departmental or school orientation, and should be given the contact information for a chair or another faculty member in their department whom they can reach out to for support, consultation, review of course materials, classroom observation or referrals to university resources.
Keep an eye out for future emails announcing the implementation of further contract provisions, including new limits on the use of student feedback forms, new parameters for contract lengths for full-time non-tenure track faculty, and, for adjuncts, new procedures for raises, promotions, and multi-semester contracts.
What We Didn’t Get and How We Plan to Get It
There were things we fought for but were unable to get in this round of negotiations, but there are now four years to prepare for and work toward a number of the most challenging issues. Some of these include:
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Childcare support.
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Increasing the number/percentage of tenure-track and full-time positions.
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Increasing the diversity of the individuals who teach, mentor, and support the diverse group of students served at Temple.
It’s been an exciting time to see what unions have been able to achieve across the country–in the last year alone, the teachers’ union in Los Angeles won smaller class sizes and more investment in education; the union in Chicago won more support staff for students in Chicago’s public schools; the union at Rutgers won equity raises for women faculty and faculty of color and $20 million for diversity hiring. Working in solidarity, the seemingly impossible becomes possible.
Working together, scales can be re-balanced.
We can fight for changes at Temple that will make it a better place to work, teach, and conduct research; but, in order to do so, more individuals need to be involved in representing the concerns of their schools and departments. We can exercise the strength that we have only when people in every department at the university are organized, prepared, and working together.
TAUP wishes all of us a rewarding and exciting semester. We look forward to working together for a vision of Temple that realizes our deeply-held values and results in a university that reflects Our Temple.
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TAUP