Candidates were informed that they could make a short statement that would be available to voters. The following are the statements that were received, by alphabetical order of last name:

John Aliano

My name is John Aliano, Program Director for Videography & Film. I have worked at CSN for six years and feel I can be an asset to the bargaining team and NFA. As we move forward with collective bargaining it is important to advocate for many interests represented by a variety of classifications within the CSN community. I have been an active participant in numerous meetings thus far and will continue to support the best interests of our hard working faculty.

Regards,
John

Jerry Hodges

My name is Professor Jerry Hodges and I have been at CSN for some 23 years. I have been very involved in college service over these many years and have been a strong advocate for faculty over my tenure at CSN. If elected as a member of the bargaining team, I will continue to be a strong advocate for faculty in the collective bargaining process.

Aminul KM

I believe in shared governance. We can make Collective Bargaining a part of shared governance in this beautiful institution of CSN. I will work with the administration on our behalf to make sure that we have proper health and salary benefits. Even though CSN is the one of the biggest community colleges in the U.S, our benefits are less than our peers. Our salaries are below national median, and our health benefits are even worse. How could one of the biggest community colleges in the country doesn’t even fall in the top 500 in salaries and benefits? With inadequate compensation and poor benefits, we are having trouble recruiting the best teachers and retaining scores of our excellent colleagues. A strong CB team can improve our salaries, benefits, and overall environment, and make CSN one of the premier institutions in the nation.

Aminul KM

Mathematics

Joseph Miller

I believe that the collective bargaining team will play a critical part in the future of CSN, and members of the team should have broad background in terms of the experiences at CSN. A short summary of my experiences is below:

        • Over the years I’ve been a part-time instructor, emergency hire instructor, tenured track, and tenured faculty. I started in 1999 as a part-time instructor.

        • At times in addition to teaching I’ve served as a Program Director and Department Chair.   In both of those positions I strongly advocated for the interests of the Program faculty or Department faculty when in those positions.

       • I’ve served in the Faculty Senate for close to 10 years.

Jennifer Nelson

Collective bargaining at CSN gives academic faculty, counsellors, and librarians new status in the shared governance of this college. Through our representatives at the bargaining table, we are made equal parties with our administrators in the processes of contract negotiation. The training for negotiation I have completed over the last two months has by no means made me a perfect candidate for your bargaining team. What I offer is professionalism and over 15 years' experience with faculty issues at CSN, seen from the perspectives of the classroom as a tenured professor, the Faculty Senate  as an Arts & Letters representative, and NFA leadership (currently, as chapter VP and state board Treasurer). If elected as a negotiator, I will work tirelessly to support the negotiating team's efforts to bring the best possible contract to you for ratification. Thank you in advance for your vote.

Jennifer S. Nelson, Ph.D

T. Raghu

NFA Colleagues,
I have been a professor of philosophy in the department of social sciences at CSN, West Charleston campus, for twelve years. I currently serve at CSN in the Workload & Evaluation Committee, the Strategic Futures Task force appointed by President Richards, and the departmental program review committee. I strongly supported the NFA in its attempt to win the Collective Bargaining election. I have attended the CAPE session on "Faculty Rights and Processes under Collective Bargaining" and, of course, the NFA Collective Bargaining training session. I am strongly committed to achieving expertise in all relevant policies and procedures impacting faculty rights and interests. Ensuring a healthy, supportive, and productive work climate for faculty at CSN is one of my top priorities. Another priority is inclusion, without which diversity is a charade. If elected to your bargaining team, I will work to the best of my ability to alleviate and eliminate work climate factors at CSN which undermine faculty rights, interests, morale, and meaningful participation.
I look forward to your valuable support in this election. If you have any questions, pl. do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail or by phone.
Best,
Thill Raghu

Steve Soltz

Dear fellow NFA members,

I am running for a position on the bargaining team, which will be negotiating your contract terms with CSN. I have been involved with the effort to gain collective bargaining rights since it began. I was never a union man. But the circumstances that have come about regarding our pay and benefits over the last eight (8) years have made it such that I saw no other way to make change, other than collective bargaining. I can assure you that if I am chosen as a member I will do my part to see that the faculty are given the best contract that can be done, under the constraints of Nevada and NSHE law.

Respectfully,

Steve Soltz

Ingrid Stewart

Dear Colleagues

The other day I overheard a conversation between my friends Ray and Steve. Ray asked what Steve’s son is doing for a living. Steve said, “Well, he wanted to be a teacher, but I talked him out of that. Teachers don’t make any money. Now he works in marketing and makes over half a mil a year.”

I felt degraded! After all, isn’t it the teachers who educated this marketing manager as well as the doctors and lawyers and such? Therefore, shouldn’t teachers at least earn a salary they can be proud of and that the public respects?

I would like to be a part of the NFA negotiation team to try to bring back some pride in being a teacher. I understand that I must be professional in my dealings with the administration, be respectful, and have integrity.

Now, the other side might say that teaching is a labor of love and teachers shouldn’t bankrupt the system. But if the Clark County Commissioners don’t worry about that when they sent a $750 mil request for public funds to the Governor to build a Raider’s Stadium, I won’t even worry about our much humbler requests. According to Channel 8, about 65% of publicly funded stadiums are no longer used after some period of time whereas our profession keeps on giving.

Sincerely,

Ingrid Stewart, Ph.D.

David Wangsgard

My name is David Wangsgard, and I would like to serve on the collective bargaining team. I currently serve on the NFA executive board as the chair of Membership and Organizing. For the past two years, I have been deeply involved in our efforts to achieve collective bargaining at CSN. I would like to see these efforts through to the successful negotiation of a robust contract for CSN faculty.

In solidarity,

David Wangsgard

Glynda White

Dear Faculty,

I ask for your vote to become a member of the CSN/NFA-AAUP Bargaining Team. See below a few pertinent facts, my qualifications and reasons for seeking this position.

I am a professor and lead faculty of Business and Employment/Labor Law in the Department of Business Administration. I have been at CSN for over twenty years. My many years of teaching at CSN have allowed me to serve on many college committees, interact with faculty in interdisciplinary areas and, afforded me the opportunity develop new courses for the department.

In 1998 I developed the Employment Law course which includes a component of Labor Law with collective bargaining. The class introduces to students this area of workplace law as they prepare to enter the business environment. I am currently teaching this class.

I hold the Juris Doctor degree and, a trained lawyer. My work experience includes working in law offices in different states, EEOC, Nevada Equal Rights Commission (NERC) and the US Department of Commerce, specifically Economic Development of Administration (EDA).

I am seeking to become a member of the bargaining team because I believe in Academic Collective Bargaining. I have good skills in persuasion and advocacy for the best interest of the unit. It is my position that an effective labor-management plan provides a positive and productive workplace climate for all parties. Academic Collective Bargaining is a method to bring about equality, genuine shared decision making and improved conflict resolution.

I know how to bargain in good faith and I am a strong advocate. And I want to represent you!

Thank you for your vote!

The NFA southern PAC has been active this election cycle, interviewing and endorsing candidates.

PAC members have questioned candidates on issues relating to higher education, from funding, including faculty pay, to the potential restructuring of NSHE. So far, SPAC endorsed candidates, all of whom have spoken face-to-face with PAC members, include: 

Senate:

Joyce Woodhouse

Nicole Cannizzaro

Alexander Marks

Aaron Ford

Tick Segerblom

Assembly:

Ozzie Fumo

Elliot Anderson

Nelson Araujo

Tyrone Thompson

Steve Yeager

Lesley Cohen

Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod

John Piro

Jason Frierson

Ellen Spiegel

Chris Brooks

William McCurdy II

The NFA northern PAC has also been active. We will be releasing a full list of endorsements prior to the election.

Cross-posted from NFA-UNLV blog:

http://nfaunlv.blogspot.com/2016/08/nfa-unlv-table-at-new-faculty.html

The Nevada State College NFA Chapter has launched a new chapter website. It can be found at: http://www.nfa-nsc.org/

The results of the bylaws election are in, and the revisions have passed with 93% voting "yes." Thanks to all who took the time to look over the changes and vote on this matter.

The NFA State Board has initiated a full membership election to ratify changes to the NFA bylaws. These changes were approved unanimously by the NFA State Board at the Spring 2016 meeting.

The election will be held shortly. A two thirds majority "yes" vote will be required to enact the changes. On behalf of the State Board, I encourage everyone to vote.

Changes and explanation:

Article V.F.2, Quorum: Currently, a requirement for a quorum is one board member from the universities, one from the community colleges, and one from the state college. This has proved problematic because there is only one state college, meaning that the absence of one individual could prevent a quorum. The proposed amendment is to change this requirement to one board member from a northern institution and one from a southern institution.

Article V.B, Composition of the Board: The proposed amendment moves legal defense coordinator, legal defense evaluator, and past president from voting to non-voting members of the State Board. This was felt appropriate because none of these positions derive from a current election. They are preserved as non-voting members of the Board because they can offer valuable insight and continuity of experience.

Article V.D, Vacancies: The proposed amendment clarifies that vacancy in the Chapter President position is to be filled by the chapter itself, and not the State Board. This is current practice but the wording in the bylaws was unclear. It also clarifies that vacancies in the State Executive Board are to be filled by the Executive Board itself, also current practice.

VII.D, VII.F, VII.G, Committees: These are various tweaks to committee composition, intended to make the committees more functional.

You can view the full text of the bylaws, with the proposed additions in red and deletions struck through, by clicking the following:

NFA Bylaws with Proposed Revision 6 19 2016.doc

After the last legislative session, NFA applauded the compensation increases that were given for faculty, while stressing the need for full funding of merit, as had been our position during the session. We argued that if the state did not fund merit, the system or the institutions should.

The following was NFA testimony to the Regents, delivered by NFA President Jim Strange shortly after the end of the legislative session. We continue to adhere to this position and fight for merit.

Statement:

The Nevada Faculty Alliance urges the NSHE Board of Regents, Chancellor Klaich and the Institution presidents to fund a 2.5% merit increase for NSHE professional staff for each year of the coming biennium. Awarding of merit should proceed according to policies approved at each institution. Awarding of meritshould under no circumstances be detrimental to existing professional positions.

• Since 2008, NSHE professional staff have endured reduced salaries due to reductions to base pay, furloughs, and a lack of merit pay funding or COLA, while experiencing higher workload.

• All NSHE employees should be treated equally in terms of merit funding. Nevada classified employees received a merit (step) increase of 2.5% in each year of the coming biennium, whereas NSHE professionals received no merit increase. Awarding merit unequally to NSHE employees will not be beneficial to morale, and could negatively impact our service to students and communities.

• As Nevada recovers economically, it’s only fair for NSHE professionals be recognized and compensated for their sacrifices during the recession.

• Nevada is losing its regional competitiveness in its ability to attract and retain high quality professional staff. This has left NSHE institutions at risk of not achieving the levels of student success, transformational research, commercialization of technologies and workforce development which are crucial to Nevada’s economic future.

• Community college faculty have recently moved from the traditional step system for salaries, and revised evaluation systems to accommodate a true merit-based salary system. Failing to award merit in the first year of full implementation of the new true merit system would be detrimental to morale and call into question the validity of the new system.  

In an election held in late March and early April, full-time faculty at College of Southern Nevada voted for collective bargaining, 263-126. On April 15th, the American Arbitration Association counted the votes and certified the result.

"We are very proud and excited that our colleagues at the College of Southern Nevada have chosen to stand together and form a union with AAUP. We look forward to working with them to ensure faculty has a strong voice on campus," commented Howard Bunsis, Chair of the AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress.

"We look forward to sitting down at the table with the administration in the fall to discuss faculty working conditions and student learning conditions," said David Steel, NFA-AAUP Executive Director.

NFA Position on Part-Time Faculty

Whereas part-time faculty contribute professional knowledge and experience in their disciplines to higher education in Nevada, provide vital support to students’ learning and degree-seeking or other program-completion goals, and collaborate with full-time faculty and other NSHE colleagues in common cause to fulfill their institutions’ mission; yet, whereas in recent decades, part-time faculty have seen greater institutional reliance on their services be rewarded by increasing levels of economic exploitation and unprofessional treatment accompanied by decreasing levels of work and career support; and, whereas this widening gap of inequities dividing part-time and full-time faculty threatens the commonality of professional interests shared by all classifications of faculty--academic freedom, shared governance, protection of tenure rights, and employment due process--

Be it resolved that Nevada Faculty Alliance will advocate on behalf of part-time faculty by promoting on campus, before the Regents, and in the state legislature those policies, programs, and values that will improve pay, working conditions, and other key aspects of contingent employment in NSHE colleges and universities. NFA further resolves to invite its part-time faculty members into the advocacy process, as consultants and voters in determining priorities for activism, and to represent agreed-upon proposals as a strong voice for our colleagues who, in just concern for reprisal or retribution against them for supporting their own cause, are willing to be so represented. NFA believes that strengthening our alliance with part-time faculty can in time reverse the trend in NSHE toward hiring disproportionately high numbers of non-tenure-track faculty and will preserve the traditional model and values of tenure, the keystone to academic freedom in higher education.

In accordance with this resolution, we adopt the following five-point program as a guide to our advocacy work on behalf of part-time faculty employed at NSHE institutions:

Pay

1. Part-time faculty salaries should be incrementally raised until such time as part-time faculty are paid a salary proportional to that paid full-time tenure-track faculty of the same qualifications for the same classroom work, bearing in mind that full-time faculty perform numerous non-teaching duties. If part-time faculty are required to do non-teaching work, they should be compensated for those tasks

Working conditions

2. Part-time faculty should receive a full orientation and should be eligible for professional development opportunities. They should be provided suitable office space, office supplies, and library and other campus privileges, and should have access to secretarial and technological support services including computers and copying machines. Part-time faculty may have to cobble together several jobs to sustain themselves and, therefore, NSHE institutions should provide them with priority parking or discounts on parking permits where appropriate to help offset their time demands and to help them meet their teaching duties

Categorization

3. Part-time faculty should be defined as employees of the college or university, not as independent contractors. Accordingly, they should have unemployment insurance available to them when they are not on the college payroll.

Seniority

4. Part-time faculty who have passed a probationary period should achieve a form of seniority, including longer contracts and priority in class assignment over less senior part-time/adjunct faculty. Part-time faculty with a successful track record in teaching should be given special consideration in evaluation for full-time positions for which they are qualified.

Collective bargaining

5. Part-time faculty should have the right to choose collective bargaining.  

Nevada Faculty Alliance

Statement on the Proposal to Reduce the Notice of Dismissal of

Administrative Faculty

 

Glenn C. Miller, President, UNR Nevada Faculty Alliance, for the

Nevada Chapter of the Faculty Alliance

 

The NSHE Regent Agenda lists a discussion item regarding the reduction of notice for dismissal ofadministrative faculty from up to a year to 30 to 45 days.   The Nevada Faculty Alliance strongly opposes this change in policy for the following reasons.

 

1.  Administrative faculty are critical to the functioning of each unit of the NSHE and need to have the ability to make decisions and recommendations that are thoughtful and independent, even if they do not always agree with the respective central administration.   Administrative faculty are highly trained professionals and the decision on whether they should be terminated should have a high barrier.  Most go through national searches, and can be dismissed early following their hiring, or even later if severe issues arise, similar to academic faculty.   But, reducing their job security based on the whim of an upper administrator is entirely wrong.   These people have functions that are critically important in many functions of the university, from protecting students from harm, or ensuring that we are in compliance with local, state and federal laws.    We should not have them looking around to determine if they are going to do something that is not supported by the upper administration, and have a threat of being dismissed within 30-45 days.

 

2.   What is the problem that is being solved by this new dismissal policy?   This has worked well for many years, although we know that the administration of several (if not all) of the NSHE units would have liked to have this policy in place during the difficult recession times.   But, we survived those very difficult times, and there is no reason to change the policy at this time.    For the remainingadministrative faculty on state-funded positions who make decisions that are critical to the operation of the university, we need to maintain a high barrier for their dismissal.   30-45 days is not a high barrier.

 

3.   Hiring highly qualified people in these positions will be increasingly difficult if they are subject to the whims of the upper administrations.   While a president, provost or dean may be in their positions for a long time, they change on a regular basis, and a highly qualified person may be reluctant to come to UNR if they know they can be dismissed on a whim in 30-45 days for no reason if a new supervisor is hired.   The best people will come to the best institutions of higher education when they know they will have time to find a new position of the current position is untenable.  If there is not security in a position, then they simply are unlikely to come to units of the NSHE.

 

4.  This policy change will increase the ability of the central administration of each unit to increase what faculty perceive as a top-down management style.   If administrative faculty need to look over their shoulder each time to determine if their decisions are supported by the upper administration, they are unlikely to make difficult decisions that are correct, but controversial.   At UNR when the funding formulas were changed and now depend on student tuition, many administrative faculty were converted from a 1 year dismissal policy to 30-45 day.  We have seen administrative faculty dismissed following that conversion.  Two examples- one was the very able legal staff who helped faculty secure patents for intellectual property.   They went form 1 year dismissals to 30 day dismissal contracts, although they were generously give 60 day dismissals.    One administrative faculty member who had worked for 25 years in the seismology department came up against a new administration, and she was dismissed with the simple statement that the funds supporting her position were being redirected.   She had never been criticized for her scientific ability or her work ethic, but had a strong personality.   She was dismissed under the 30 day policy. 

 

The regents simply should not change the policy for new administrative faculty.   It is contrary to the notion that a unit of Nevada’s higher education system has independent minds working for teaching, research and service to one that has a top down management with narrow vision that one view of the world is how higher education will be delivered.    Diversity of opinion is a critical component of higher education and we all need to protect this core vision.