The USFA’s External Relations Committee met recently with the Graduate Students Association, which is opposing a series of tuition hikes over the next several years, along with PSAC 40004, the bargaining agent for graduate students working as teaching assistants. “We are considering increasing graduate tuition by approximately 10 per cent per year for five years,” provost […]

Did you know the USFA has a Conference Fund to which members may apply for financial support to attend conferences related to the USFA? This would include conferences, workshops or meetings related labour relations, academic freedom, employment equity and workplace health and safety.  Criteria for approval of requests includes: Relevance to the mandate and activities […]

A recent e-letter referenced a view once widely-held here that that faculty devote 40% of their time to research, 40% to teaching, and 20% to service. The intent behind the 40/40/20 model was to ensure that faculty had time to remain sufficiently current in their area of expertise so as to make scholarly contributions, that […]

USFA members over the age of 55, should they wish, have the right to participate in a Reduced Appointment Retirement Plan (RARP), which is a way to work less than full time (between 80% and 50%) before retiring. A RARP must have a duration of 12 months and can be as long as 36 months.  […]

Many of you might be aware that tomorrow, February 21st, will see all four public school teacher unions in Ontario mount a coordinated strike for the first time in decades. Many Ontario faculty associations in Ontario are staging coordinated solidarity actions on the same day. “Ontario’s teachers are fighting for an education system that ensures […]

There is a conflict between the Collective Agreement and information available on the website for the Vice-President Research regarding copyright ownership of works created by faculty. The Intellectual Property Policies (Section 2.2 Copyright Policy – Works Created at the University of Saskatchewan) suggests faculty members do not retain copyright in any work they create through the course of […]

The Joint Committee for the Management of the Agreement has had discussions recently regarding assignment of duties. These discussions have included the three primary areas of responsibility that faculty duties entail – research, teaching, administration – expressed in percentages of time devoted to each area, most often as 40% research, 40% teaching and 20% administration. […]

After members of Unifor Local 594 voted 97% in favour of strike action against the Co-op Refinery Complex (CRC) last December, the CRC locked out the workers. Unifor contacted labour organizations, including USFA and the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (of which USFA is an affiliate), asking them to participate in a national boycott of co-ops […]

It is clear from responses to our recent e-Letter regarding the appointment of senior administrators that the search and review processes for these positions are very important to USFA members.  We received a number of emails from members in response to our e-Letter. Some expressed disappointment, while others expressed anger. We heard from many that […]

There is a broad diversity of what constitutes authorship across disciplines. You have responsibilities when you accept to have your name as an author on a publication. In collaborative research, one cannot be responsible for all aspects of data collection, conduct of research, analysis, or writing. Nonetheless, authors cannot absolve themselves completely of subsequent problems […]