News

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.

FAUW extends our sympathy to the family of Colten Boushie, to his fellow Red Pheasant First Nation community members, and to the broader Indigenous community at this difficult time. We are grateful to live and work on the traditional territory of the Neutral (Attawandaron), Anishnaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples. We value and respect our Indigenous members, colleagues, students, and neighbours. We have a lot of work to do to act on that value and respect, and we are committed to doing it.

The FAUW Board is pleased to announce that salary negotiations with the University of Waterloo have come to a successful conclusion and the negotiating teams have signed a three-year agreement effective May 1, 2018.

The agreement includes, among other things, a scale increase of 2.0% in 2018 and 2.15% in 2019 and 2020, and an across-the-board salary adjustment of $850 per member.

The new Complementary Teaching Assessment Project Team (CTAPT) is seeking members.

Background

At its October meeting, the University of Waterloo Senate debated and passed the following motion by senator and FAUW vice president Shannon Dea: “To strike a working group to research and develop methods of assessing teaching and learning complementary to Student Course Perception surveys.”

On October 26, FAUW held a 60th anniversary discussion exploring the unique relationship between faculty and the administration at Waterloo, and presented our first FAUW Appreciation Awards to honour members of the University community who have made real differences in the lives of faculty members.

Al Binns received the award for compassionately and discreetly helping faculty to navigate confidential emergency situations; Lynne Taylor for negotiating and co-chairing the 2015 salary anomalies review, and securing regular anomaly reviews into the future; and Linda Brogden for supporting faculty members through some of the most difficult times of their careers and for her role in changing the conversation about faculty illness and mental health on campus.