usfa@usaskfaculty.ca

March 30, 2021 Deadline to Submit Expense Claims to Sun Life for Health, Dental and Flexible Spending Benefit

Claims for reimbursement for any expenses from any of the benefit plans must be submitted to and received by Sun Life within 90 days of the end of the calendar year in which the expense is incurred. This means that the deadline for submitting claims incurred between January 1 and December 31, 2020 is March 30, 2021.  Claims must be received by […]

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What’s wrong with doing less with less?

In this edition of Vox, an article submitted by three USFA members focuses on faculty workload expectations in the current U of S system for funding academic units. The article addresses the fact that few faculty have changed how they approach their work in response to chronic underfunding and an erosion of supports for faculty […]

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Workload: What questions should we be asking ourselves?

We are hearing from some members that the volume of their work is too great, that the pandemic is making a challenging workload overwhelming and that it all feels out of their control. Keeping up with the demands of increased and new ways of teaching, fulfilling faculty administrative responsibilities along with completing more and more […]

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Reminder: Meetings with Indigenous USFA Members

USFA Chair Allison Muri and Vice-Chair Doug Chivers, are meeting with Indigenous USFA members monthly for open discussions on topics of members’ choosing. To allow members to participate when then can, these meetings take place at 10:00 a.m. on the first Wednesday of the month via Zoom. The next one is March 3, 2021. To […]

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Question the narrative

While the operating grant from the Provincial Government is less than what it has been and the costs associated with being a medical-doctoral university are not decreasing, the University of Saskatchewan is not in financial jeopardy.  The university’s financial statements in the most recent Annual Financial Report shows a positive balance in the General Fund at April […]

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It is Still About Choice

You may have heard that Laurentian University recently filed for creditor protection. This news, coupled with some Senior Administrators discussing deficits in terms of “number of faculty positions they no longer have funding for,” has many faculty worried about job security at the University of Saskatchewan. Let us assure you that faculty jobs are largely […]

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CAUT Forum on French-speaking universities in pandemic times

From apprehended crisis to critical emergency Friday, February 26, 2021 at 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) Canada’s French-speaking universities were already on an alarming trajectory before COVID-19 hit. The pandemic has exacerbated the pressures on Francophone university education in a minority context and things have now gone from urgent to critical. The Forum will […]

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Have you taken vacation this year?

According to the Collective Agreement (Article 19), you are entitled to six weeks of annual paid vacation, unless your appointment is less than full time in which case your vacation entitlement is pro-rated. Unlike most workers, you do not earn your vacation. It is available to you on the effective date of your appointment.  Your […]

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Balancing your assignment of duties

Some faculty members have already begun collegial discussions about assignment of duties in their units for the 2021-2022 academic year.  Many members have contacted the Association about unfairness and inequitability in the workload assignment in recent years, and particularly during the lockdown. The major changes in teaching culture might be a good time to revisit […]

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University Council motion in support of rejecting the active/inactive researcher designation

Members of the Research, Scholarly and Artistic Work Committee of University Council have voted to put forward the following motion to University Council. There is a notice of the motion in this month’s council meeting agenda: “It is recommended that University Council support in principle a) the rejection of the use of “active/inactive” designations for researchers […]

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