Unfortunately, PSU administration has been eyeing teaching load increases for faculty. You may be aware that PSU-AAUP is taking to arbitration a grievance arising from administration’s unilateral increase of teaching loads for faculty in the School of Film.
We want to be able to defend against any such unilateral increases, and one tool in our toolkit is your Notice of Appointment letter and Supplemental Tenure Letter (if applicable). PSU-AAUP recently submitted a Request for Information (RFI) for those letters for all faculty in our bargaining unit. PSU administration responded to the RFI, indicating that those letters are not stored in a central location and instead are scattered in various unit offices and basement archives across campus, and many are not even digitized. Because of this, PSU administration has chosen to charge PSU-AAUP for the retrieval and duplication of the letters. Their estimate was nearly $10,000. We could contest that amount, but in the end we don’t expect the administration to reduce their estimate by very much.
Here is where you come in. If you have a copy of your hire letter, we ask that you please forward a copy to Scott Beaver, PSU-AAUP Executive Director, Contract Enforcement and Bargaining at scott@psuaaup.net. If you do not have a copy, please request it in writing from your dean, center director or other appropriate administrator as soon as possible, and when you receive it please forward it to Scott at the email address above. If you have any difficulty obtaining a copy of either letter, please let us know. We will keep your letters confidential.
Thanks in advance for your help with this collective action. Together we can fight workload increases.