News

Our 2018 salary settlement with the University included a commitment to re-allocate unused Faculty Professional Expense Reimbursement (FPER) funds. We've reached an agreement with Provost to divide all the FPER money that expired last spring and this spring equally among members and add it to this year’s FPER allowance (for faculty who were FPER-eligible as of May 1, 2020). That will happen on December 4, 2020.

The Renison Association of Academic Staff (RAAS) is delighted to announce that it received certification as a trade union on March 23, 2020. RAAS was first established as a non-certified association on February 12, 2018 and is affiliated with FAUW through a service agreement.

Earlier this month, FAUW conducted a survey about members' experiences preparing for the 2020 spring and fall terms amid the transition to fully remote delivery, to help us advocate for our members’ interests. You can now access the results of the survey in the Reports & Documents section of our website. 

FAUW is particularly concerned that, at the time of the survey (May 8–13), 71% of respondents teaching in the fall said it was not clear to them how decisions were being made about how their courses should be delivered. 

74% of respondents teaching in the spring term felt more unprepared than usual at the start of term and only 53% felt that they received adequate support for spring term overall.  

Congratulations to the new members of the Board of Directors from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022.

FAUW's new member-driven Climate Justice Working Group brings together faculty members at the University of Waterloo to generate collective action on campus—and within our broader communities—to help foster a just, climate-safe future.

This is a decentralized, action-oriented group that aims to shrink the carbon footprint of our work on campus and beyond, to build climate justice awareness on campus and in our community, and to spark related research with impact across the disciplines.

The 2019 FAUW Board elections are now complete.

Dina Dawoud (Statistics & Actuarial Science) and Patrick Lam (Electrical and Computer Engineering) will join the Board this July as at-large directors, along with Narveen Jandu (School of Public Health and Health Systems) in the Applied Health Sciences seat.

Shannon Dea (Philosophy) and Johanna Wandel (Geography and Environmental Management) were re-elected as at-large directors, and Brent Matheson (Math/Business and Accounting) will continue on in the lecturers position.

The University of Waterloo dental plan currently reimburses 80% of the cost of basic expenses as set out in the Ontario Dental Association (ODA) fee guide from two years ago (up to an annual maximum). Effective for treatments starting January 1, 2019, this reimbursement is increasing to 95% of the ODA’s current fee guide.

The move from the two-years-old fee guide to the current fee guide also affects major dental work and orthodontic work. Reimbursement for these costs should increase by 4-8%.

Last week, Faculty Association members voted to change how we calculate dues. Currently, each faculty member represented by FAUW pays 0.525% of the average base salary for faculty members at their rank. Starting in the new year, each faculty member will pay 0.525% of their own base salary, which makes for a more equitable distribution of dues and brings FAUW in line with other faculty associations. We expect Human Resources to implement this change in January 2019.

In 2016, the merit process in the Memorandum of Agreement was amended. In addition to making performance evaluations for tenured and continuing faculty biennial, the amendment included enhancements to merit histograms (section 13.5.11) to make them easier to access and include more fine-grained information.

Our 2018 elections for new Directors of the Board are now complete, following a runoff election to break a tie in Arts.

The successful candidates from Arts, Engineering, Environment, Mathematics, and Science are, respectively: Alice Kuzniar, Paul Ward, Daniel Cockayne, Dan Brown, and Vivian Choh. Congratulations to the new Directors, and thank you to everyone who ran and voted!

We received no nominations from members in Applied Health Sciences, so this position will be vacant until the Board can fill it by appointment.