SEIU Faculty Forward and the faculty regent initiative
Email from SEIU Faculty Forward and UW AAUP has made you aware of their efforts this year to add a faculty member to the University of Washington Board of Regents.
Here's what you may not know:
Email from SEIU Faculty Forward and UW AAUP has made you aware of their efforts this year to add a faculty member to the University of Washington Board of Regents.
Here's what you may not know:
- Efforts to create a faculty regent position date back to at least 2007.
- Legislation was proposed jointly by the 6 public institutions in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010
- UW had been in discussion with the other 5 public institutions about going forward jointly again next year.
- Why not this year? Ironically, because a faculty regent would run afoul of the union contracts at Western, Eastern, Central, and Evergreen - problems with an individual being both "labor" and "management." Time was needed to sort this out.
- But of course, because those pushing this session's initiative on behalf of SEIU Faculty Forward did not consult early-on with the UW administration or with the Faculty Senate or with our Faculty Legislative Representative, they were clueless about this.
- So the result was lots of noses bent out of joint at our sister institutions, who believed that UW had agreed to go forward together next year.
- All of this was a publicity stunt by SEIU Faculty Forward and UW AAUP. The minutes of the April 15 2015 meeting of the AAUP Executive Board, under "3. SEIU Report" list "Issues to build awareness: Board of Regents appointments." Check it out here. (That specific reference concerned opposition to future corporate appointments to the Board. This effort resulted in a retiring regent from Starbucks being replaced by a regent from Costco.)
