Academy for Academic Personnel Administration

Fall 2003

Round Table Report

 

1.  Institution Information

 

Name of Institution/System:             Wright State University

Name of Individual Responding:     Bill Rickert

Title of Individual Responding:         Associate Provost

 

2a. Description of Faculty Bargaining Unit(s) – Size and Composition

 

The unit consists of approximately 400 full-time tenured and tenure eligible faculty.  Department chairs, deans, provosts and the president are excluded.  Approximately 300 other full-time faculty at the university (instructors, lecturers, clinical faculty in nursing, and all faculty in the School of Medicine and the School of Professional Psychology) are excluded because they are not tenure-eligible.

 

Bargaining Agent:     AAUP

 

Date of First Contract:  December 8, 1999

 

Number of Succeeding Contracts:  1

 

3. Activity Report (e.g., status of current agreement or negotiations, details of last contract settlement, etc.):

 

We are in the middle of a three-year agreement that expires June 5, 2005.  Salary increases for each of the three years consist of across-the board, merit, market, and equity increases totaling approximately 4.6% per year.

 

A promised “good faith effort” to complete bylaws for all colleges and departments by December 2000 was finally completed in June 2003.  The bylaws “state procedures by which Bargaining Unit Faculty give advice and make recommendations” by setting up faculty meetings, committees, and so forth.  More importantly, the bylaws of each department set forth quite specifically the requirements for tenure, promotion, and annual evaluation of teaching, scholarship, and service.  After complaining bitterly about the arduous task of developing the bylaws, chairs and deans are finding that the completed bylaws provide clear and consistent standards that make faculty evaluation easier, more consistent, and generally more rigorous than it had been.  Clearly stated expectations for promotion and tenure in tandem with annual progress statements from the Department Chair and Promotion and Tenure Committee promise to make negative tenure and promotion decisions much more resistant to appeals and arbitration.

 

Responding to aging buildings, classrooms and laboratories in need of renovation, and sometimes inadequate HVAC systems, faculty are increasingly using the university’s recognition of “the importance of an adequate working environment” in the CBA to lodge their complaints about everything from lack of chalk to lack of breathable air.  The number of complaints (sometimes in the form of grievances) has risen considerably, and it seems to increase even more as the university intensifies its efforts to respond.