April 2, 2024
Newsletter
Navigation:
Reps’ Corner: Student Evaluations of Teaching
Upcoming events and important dates
Latest Union Wins
Adjunct News and Achievements
Sign your union card
Links to full contract and contract highlights
upcoming events:
Here is a list of noteworthy dates.
Click on the designated links for details.
View our ACT UAW calendar here.
Thursday, April 11, 5pm
Organizing Committee Social
Please join UAW Local 7902 on Thursday, April 11, from 5-7pm for our monthly social at Vol de Nuit, a bar near the Washington Square Park campus (148 West 4th Street, entrance inside the courtyard; there is no sign!).
Come grab a drink and get to know fellow academic workers! Pizza will be provided (vegan option available), and you can purchase beer, wine, and soft drinks at the bar.
You’ll be able to meet colleagues, ask questions, bring up any concerns you have, and learn how to get involved with our unions' organizing efforts. New hires are especially welcome, and we will have union cards to sign if you are not yet a member.
RSVP here. If you can’t join us this time, but want more info about the NYU Organizing Committee, please fill out the RSVP form and we will keep you posted about Zoom meetings and future gatherings.
We hope you will join us! Please pass the invitation along to your colleagues. Looking forward to seeing you next Thursday!
Friday, April 19, 10:00 am
ACT-UAW Local 7902 Joint Council Meeting
You are invited to attend the next meeting of the ACT-UAW Local 7902 Joint Council on Thursday, February 29, at 6:00 PM via Zoom.
Our union, composed of NYU Adjuncts and New School part-time faculty, student workers (SENS), and health service employees (SHENS), is governed by two democratically elected leadership bodies: the Joint Council and the Executive Board.
The 78 members of the Joint Council direct the activities of our union to organize, enforce contracts, and support members. The Joint Council also approves an annual budget and makes decisions about how to allocate funds from our dues. Zoom link forthcoming.
Late April (Exact Date TBA)
April Member Town Hall
Come participate in a discussion about student evaluations:
Their role in the university system
Your legal and contractual rights
Confronting bias
This town hall will be a collaboration with The New School Part-Time Faculty Unit.
Date, time, and zoom link TBA.
REPS’ CORNER:
Evaluations of teaching
In each newsletter we answer common questions. In this issue we focus on student evaluations of teaching.
Q: Why do schools use student evaluations of teaching?
A: Student Evaluations of Teaching emerged in the 1970s as a way to improve and shape the quality of teaching. They were used as part of a formative evaluation process, that is, evaluating teaching while it was occurring so as to improve it. Since then student evaluations of teaching have become forms of summative evaluation, evaluations after the process is completed wherein average scores are compared. In many places they are the sole determinant of faculty quality.
Q: Are student evaluations of teaching valid and/or biased?
A: Student Evaluations of Teaching have been the subject of research for decades. Their problems are well known.
They are not well correlated with other measures of teacher quality.
They demonstrate bias against women, GLBTQ+ individuals, and faculty of color.
They are biased against differential levels of assigned workload and level of course difficulty.
Scores of the same faculty member by different classes diverge widely.
Are correlated with factors like attractiveness, likability, accent and use of humor.
For more information, see the attached document.
Q: What should I do if I get called in by the administration to discuss a negative evaluation?
A: Given the unreliability of student evaluations of teaching, it is not recommended that faculty try to defend themselves by explaining their scores or justifying their actions. The best course of action is simply to listen and indicate one’s openness to feedback and that one is always looking to improve their teaching. If pressed, faculty can indicate that their recollection of events differs. If you suspect that such a conversation might be used as a form of discipline rather than professional development always invoke your Weingarten rights, that is, your right to have a union representative join the meeting. Given the decades of evidence against student evaluations of teaching, our contract protects faculty against their inappropriate use.
Q: If I invoke my Weingarten rights, what will the union rep do in one of these meetings?
A: The rep is primarily there to observe and to take notes. We are not attorneys, and we will not be arguing a case for you. But we can help establish a record, and we can advise you on your rights under our contract.
Latest union wins
Since May of 2023, the union representatives have been hard at work filing grievances with the university for contract violations. This section highlights some of the union wins:
The union settled a case for an adjunct who was also an administrator. She had been informed that she could not be part of the union. We were able to have the university recognize her as a union member retroactively and provide her with termination pay for her classes in excess of $110,000.
The union settled a case for an adjunct who lost her class due to curriculum change. The adjunct was eligible to teach other classes offered by the department. Although she had reappointment rights, she was not considered for those classes. The union negotiated a settlement where the adjunct received termination pay for her course.
The union settled a case for an adjunct who was not paid the course reduction fee, despite the fact that he had reappointment rights. The union fought to have the university assign the adjunct to a replacement course or provide them with a course reduction fee. The university ultimately paid the adjunct the course reduction fee.
The union settled a case for an adjunct who had reappointment rights and their course was canceled less than 14 days prior to the start of the semester. The university paid the late course cancellation fee, despite having initially claimed that the fee was not owed.
The union settled a case for an adjunct who did not receive their reappointment letter or administrative payment. The university had been slow to respond to the adjunct, but quickly provided both the letter and the payment after the union filed a grievance.
The union settled a case on behalf of all adjunct faculty in a program that failed to provide timely or detailed reappointment letters because it wanted student enrollment numbers prior to scheduling courses. The union enforced the reappointment letter schedule as set forth in the collective bargaining agreement.
The union filed a grievance on behalf of an entire school for failing to provide reappointment letters in the timeframe set forth in the collective bargaining agreement. The university subsequently provided the missing reappointment letters.
We have a few grievances that we are still awaiting responses and two grievances that will be going to arbitration in the coming months.
ADJUNCT NEWS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Judith Sloan, part-time faculty member at Gallatin School of Individualized Study is collaborating with Najla Said on a project that fosters difficult dialogues presented and created by these two artists (Jewish American and Palestinian American) in New York City. They will be presenting the first iteration of their project Imperfect Allies: Children of Opposite Sides in New York City, April 11 and 17 at City Lore in Manhattan and April 14 at Art NY in Brooklyn. This is a project of EarSay, a non-profit arts organization based in Queens, NY. Reservations are a must
Lisa del Rosso, adjunct faculty member at the College of Arts and Sciences, will be having a public reading of her new play, Never Let You Go, on Monday, April 15th, 7pm @ Theater for the New City, 155 1st Ave. William Christopher Brown, Ph.D, Professor at Midland College wrote of Never Let You Go, "del Rosso navigates the sense of the split between our veneer of wholeness and completion that people see compared to the internal sense of fragmentedness that we so often feel."
On April 3 at 7pm, Jonathan Corcoran, adjunct faculty member at the College of Liberal Arts, will host a discussion of his newest book, No Son of Mine: a Memoir— in which he explores the entwined yet separate histories & identities of his mother and himself through grief, anger, questioning, and growth — with a discussion, audience Q&A, and book signing! RSVP and pre-order info is here.
If you have something that you would like to share in next month’s newsletter, please send it to mail@actuaw.org by Friday May 2nd at 9am.
Sign your union card
Have you signed your union membership card?
If you haven’t done so, now is the time!
Fill out the pdf and add your e-signature at both the middle and at the bottom of the form. (Note: Your N# can be found on the back of your NYU ID.)
Email your form to:
David Palmer: nyu@actuaw.org
Cheryl Coles: mail@actuaw.org
If you have any difficulties filling out the pdf, email staff organizer Annie Levin at alevin@actuaw.org. We need your participation to help ensure a strong union. The payment of either union dues or an agency fee is a condition of continued employment at NYU.