Contents by
Section: March 1998
Front
Page
Lead Story
They're
talking on campus...
On the Road
ActionLine NEA
In the Know
From Capital to
Campus
NEA Affilitates in Action
Higher Education News
Money
Savvy
The Dialogue
Thriving in Academe
Christine
Maitland
Recently, Mike Ryan, the president of Michigan's Ferris State University Faculty Association, and I traveled to Las Vegas, New Mexico to talk with faculty at Highlands University who are getting ready for a collective bargaining election.
The key issue for these faculty: the lack of respect from their college administration.
Too often, Highlands faculty told us, decisions about the future of the college have been made with zero faculty input. Two examples: the hiring of the current president without the advice of the faculty and the administration's recent action overruling faculty tenure recommendations.
Mike and I spoke at a faculty forum sponsored by the Academic Senate. The faculty wanted to know how a union and senate might work together and how much autonomy the faculty would have if they unionized.
Mike answered these questions by talking about the role Ferris State faculty now play in shared governance and how the union strengthens the faculty role.
Elected faculty representatives, Mike added, run the local Ferris Faculty Association and look to NEA for resources in training, research, and legal assistance. Highlands faculty, we hope, will soon be looking that way, too.
Christine Maitland is an NEA higher education coordinator.
