11:30 am Are you a new faculty member at the U of S? Join Executive Committee members as well as USFA staff, for lunch. What you have to say is important to the USFA and we want to hear from you. What questions do you have about the Collective Agreement? What are your concerns? How… Continue reading Wednesday September 28, 2011 – New Member Lunch 11:30 a.m. Faculty Club
Author: usaskfaculty
Promotion/tenure: 8th in a series
Sorry, no substitutions! Something to be aware of during your qualifying period for tenure or promotion is that no special arrangements can be made regarding meeting the standards. As a hypothetical example, suppose a Dean asks you to become a Department Head and offers to champion your promotion/tenure case if your research suffers as a… Continue reading Promotion/tenure: 8th in a series
When to go for tenure or promotion: 7th in a series
Practice of professional skills remains a troublesome category for members in many units, particularly the professional colleges. When the university standards for tenure and promotion were last revised, there was a wish to distinguish recognize practice of professional skills, but still require practitioners to show ability in research, consistent with the teacher/scholar model. Unfortunately, the… Continue reading When to go for tenure or promotion: 7th in a series
Educators create wealth
Discussing the teachers’ job action, a local columnist commented that the arguments of the teachers’ union for “sharing the wealth” is flawed. The author writes that “fair share” “implies someone has contributed directly to creating what is they want to share” and that such reasoning “smacks of an entitlement mentality”. (Star-Phoenix, “Sharing the wealth not… Continue reading Educators create wealth
When to go for tenure or promotion: 6th in a series
It is surprising how often we evaluate a colleague’s research career by metrics like publication counts, page counts, or order of authorship, which border on numerology, rather than considering the actual contribution. Although time is the true test of research, the reason we do this is that the practicalities of our processes force us to… Continue reading When to go for tenure or promotion: 6th in a series
When to go for tenure or promotion: 5th in a series
Today is the best day to start thinking about your promotion/tenure case. You have a lot of resources to help you in the preparation of your case file. By May 31, your Department Head or Dean should have met with you to discuss your progress in meeting the approved standards, which you should make yourself… Continue reading When to go for tenure or promotion: 5th in a series
Salary Review Standards
Article 17 of the 2010-13 Collective Agreement contains significant changes to Article 17 with respect to salary review procedures and the awarding of merit. In this issue we summarize these important changes and provide some guidance for their implementation. These changes are aimed at improving the process, the reasons for the award of special increases,… Continue reading Salary Review Standards
A Little Used Benefit
Apparently, not many members take advantage of the "Flexible Health and Wellness Spending Program". Slightly more than one quarter of USFA members per year have submitted claims for reimbursement since this program started in 2007. This round of negations has increased funds available in this program from $150 to $500 per year. These funds can… Continue reading A Little Used Benefit
Assignment of Duties
A Participatory Process This is the time of year when the process for the assignment of duties begins. Article 11 of the Collective Agreement covers this process. It is an open and transparent process that requires your participation. It is through your participation that transparency and fairness are ensured in the same manner as other… Continue reading Assignment of Duties
What Do Faculty Think Of Merit?
Recently the Faculty Association communicated a series of e-mails about the merit-based part of our salary system. This multi-part communication generated a lot of faculty responses. We want to summarize and share with you some of these responses which express views both in favour and against the concept of merit pay. The Pros and Cons… Continue reading What Do Faculty Think Of Merit?