Board Report: Winter 2025

Friday, May 29, 2026

About the Board of Directors

The UWSA Board of Directors is responsible for the Association’s governance, financial health, and long‑term strategy. While the operations team (staff, the presidents, and volunteers) manage our day‑to‑day operations, directors provide oversight to ensure the UWSA is accountable, forward‑looking, and acting in the best interests of staff.

Here's what your UWSA Board’s been up to

Since spring 2025, the UWSA Board of Directors has continued to share termly updates on Board activities. We hope to provide transparency and insight into what the Board of Directors is doing to support the UWSA and to give you a chance to reach out with any questions.

Here is an overview of what the Board worked on during the winter 2026 term:

Memorandum of Agreement (MoA)

The Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between the UWSA and the University has been mentioned many times of the past couple of months, and for good reason. This was a major milestone for staff and how we interact with the University on many important topics including compensation negotiations, association grievances, member participation rights, and University guidelines. The entire Board of Directors was involved in reviewing MoA language throughout negotiations and voted to send it to member ratification after a thorough review. Additionally, some of our directors were even more involved: Sarah Landy, Sarah Seabrook, and Tracey Beirness were part of the working group that supported the UWSA team in discussions with the University.

Compensation negotiations

Once the MoA was ratified, directors Sarah Landy, Lewis Fraser, Angela Rooke, and Tracey Beirness were part of the compensation strategy planning and negotiating team alongside UWSA President Alyssa Kuron, past president Lisa Habel, and incoming president Bill Baer. This was the first time the newly ratified negotiation process was run. The directors, together with the presidential team, are now working on post-negotiation documentation to share with future negotiation teams, with the goal of preserving institutional memory[AR1.1] and making recommendations to future teams. 

Other updates

While the MoA and compensation negotiations took a large portion of the UWSA’s focus this term, we’ve also been reviewing finance procedures and governance documentation to make sure we are as up-to-date as possible. We have also started working on strategic planning. A working group comprised of Board members, UWSA members, and the operations team is being created and will work on a strategic plan throughout the spring 2026 term.