Welcome back and Happy New Year! The overwhelming response to our first e-Letter on this topic and the strong participation in the University’s administrative practices survey have highlighted an appetite among USFA members to discuss the nature of and impediments to our work.

We know in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, workloads have been difficult to manage for many faculty members. If you are continuing to experience an unmanageable and strenuous workload, please let us know. We are also interested in learning if you or units have discovered ways to make your workload more manageable. We are trying to stay on top of this situation and any information would help us advocate for our faculty. 

As we near the end of our current Collective Agreement in 2022, we will be forming working groups in the fall to discuss potential issues for the next round of negotiations. Workload is expected to be a top priority and we would like to discuss with faculty across campus ways we can address this issue in bargaining.

In the meantime, does your unit have guidelines for the assignment of duties? With the process for the assignment of duties for next year beginning shortly, this may be a good time to develop guidelines for your unit or to review existing guidelines to ensure they take into consideration the new demands of working while at home. The Agreement requires every department and non-departmentalized college to have these guidelines and they are important to have in place should there ever be issues regarding the assignment of duties. 

Watch for information about assignment of duties in an upcoming e-Letter

If you have or are having issues with your workload or would like to share information with the USFA, simply reply to this email.