EMUtalk.org » Faculty Life

I suspect the IT Labor Day picnic has been disrupted

sitedad — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:59:08 +0000

A little ominous:

First, I (along with everyone else at EMU, I presume) received this email from VP for communications Walter Kraft:

An investigation is underway into a breach of security in an EMU server that controls my.emich passwords and Banner Self-Service PIN codes for students and employees. The breach occurred Friday at about [...]

“Texas A&M System Will Rate Professors Based on Their Bottom-Line Value”

sitedad — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:33:34 +0000

Here’s an idea that makes the proposal the administration floated in contract negotiations about tying faculty raises to enrollments and state funding seem positively quaint: From The Chronicle, “Texas A&M System Will Rate Professors Based on Their Bottom-Line Value.” A quote:

Under the proposal, officials will add the money generated by each professor and [...]

“Shifting the Health Costs Burden”

sitedad — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:47:36 +0000

A loyal EMUTalk.org reader passed along to me a couple of links (one of which is embedded in the quote below) from the New York Times about shifting the costs of health care from the employer to the employee. The editorial “Shifting the Health Costs Burden” states the problem pretty bluntly:

The latest annual [...]

Last thoughts on not striking/the latest contract

sitedad — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:30:42 +0000

Slight update #2: Here’s a link to the Annarbor.com wrap-up article, one that I don’t think is quite right, but….

A slight update: I’ve cut and pasted EMU-AAUP President Susan Moeller’s email to faculty below after the “read more” part. Note that the two links in her email take you to PDF files.

[...]

At the EMU-AAUP meeting

sitedad — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:03:38 +0000

And I know that everyone is pretty happy that it’s a meeting to talk about terms instead of a meeting to talk about striking. A pretty good crowd; here’s hoping the terms are decent enough. Much more after the break.

Moeller introducing, we do indeed have an agreement. Lots of applause, happy and [...]

Wow, we have a deal!

sitedad — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:20:22 +0000

From Susan Moeller:

We have a tentative agreement. Please come to the meeting to hear the details. The rally and informational has been canceled for this afternoon.

Congratulations to the negotiating team – please come and thank them. They have worked so hard.

Wow, go figure! I’ll still be blogging from the meeting about [...]

Negotiating into the night?

sitedad — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:07:36 +0000

I don’t know if this is good news or no news, but I noticed this morning that there has been no update from the EMU-AAUP and the update on the EMU web site says:

Monday, August 30

As of 9 p.m., negotiations remain under way. Further details will be provided when available.

By the [...]

One last update for the night

sitedad — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:27:05 +0000

…. and then I’m going to turn off the computer and/or go to bed: Susan Moeller sent around an interestingly short message tonight:

Unfortunately, today’s negotiations have been distressing. At several points, we thought we were on the road to an agreement, but nothing has materialized. We are meeting again tomorrow morning, and hopefully [...]

EMU Football MAC Media Day Stuff

sitedad — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:46:56 +0000

Also in non-strike EMU news (well, sort of) is the above video and this link to EMU’s Ron English (and a couple players) talking Media Day stuff with the MAC folks.

I say “non-strike” news, but it is hard for me not to flinch/remember the stuff that the EMU-AAUP has been saying about [...]

Bunsis visits my homeland!

sitedad — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:30:19 +0000

Also in non-strike news (sort of) and news I find personally amusing: From the Waterloo Cedar Falls (Iowa) Courier comes this, “Expert on financial state of universities to speak at UNI.” That expert is none other than our own Howard Bunsis, and UNI is the University of Northern Iowa in my hometown of Cedar [...]