The FAUW Board has adopted a position on fall 2021 decision making relating to teaching and on-campus activity. As we prepare to return to campus and in-person teaching, we need – and are asking – to have more of a say in decisions about our members' working conditions.
The FAUW Appreciation Award recognizes people from across the University who have gone above and beyond to improve the lives of faculty members. Monica Vesely is the recipient of the 2021 award.
Monica is an educational developer in the Centre for Teaching Excellence and has been a driving force behind new faculty orientation for some time, putting exceptional, thoughtful work into programming new faculty events, particularly recruiting and liaising with speakers, and inviting and gathering valuable feedback from attendees.
Dan Brown has decided to resign as FAUW president, effective the end of June 2021, citing personal reasons.
The FAUW Board has approved a plan for a special election for a new president for the term July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2023. Nomination forms will be available on Monday, May 17, and due at noon on Monday, May 31. If there is more than one candidate, voting will take place for one week in June.
We will also be holding an election for a director from the Faculty of Engineering at the same time, to fill a one-year vacancy starting July 1.
The FAUW membership voted to endorse the following message at its FAUW Spring General Meeting on April 16:
The results are in! Thank you to the 18 candidates who put your names forward for nomination this year. FAUW is grateful for your willingness to serve, and for your participation in a democratic process that strengthens the Association. Thank you also to the 44% of voting members who voted in the at-large seats and 64% of lecturer voting members who voted for the lecturer seat!
The following members have been elected to the FAUW Board of Directors, for two-year terms starting July 1, 2021.
FAUW is happy to announce that we have reached a three-year salary settlement with the University administration, effective May 1, 2021.
This round of negotiations posed some unique challenges: meeting via video conferencing, the added stressors of the pandemic, and the unusual constraints of Bill 124, which restricts the University’s total spending on compensation to a 1% increase each year for three years.
On February 5, 2021, members of the Renison Association of Academic Staff (RAAS) voted overwhelmingly (97%) in favour of ratifying the tentative agreement reached on December 16, 2020. The tentative agreement was reached after nearly two and half years of negotiations and over 45 bargaining sessions. The Board of Governors of Renison University College, affiliated with the University of Waterloo, ratified the tentative agreement in a unanimous in-camera vote on January 27, 2021.
Our negotiating team has been engaged in bargaining with the University on salary and other compensation items since December 1, 2020. We did not reach an agreement by midnight, February 1, so negotiations will continue, first with a mediator and then, if an agreement is still not reached by March 1, going to arbitration. All these procedures are set out in section 10 of the Memorandum of Agreement.
The proposed revised version of Policy 14 – Pregnancy and Parental Leaves (including Adoption) is now posted for consultation with the UW community. The proposed changes would take us from having one of the worst pregnancy and parental leave policies in the province to one of the best.
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.