Dear Colleagues

Several college reorganization proposals will be voted on by the Faculty Senate at their meeting on May 14 at 3:30 in 227 Herter.   I strongly encourage you to attend this meeting and voice your ideas and concerns about the issues up for a vote.  Details of reorganization including memoranda of understanding (MOU) for the transfers of affected departments to new colleges, will be presented.

To the extent that these or future memoranda contain agreements about teaching load, non-teaching workload, working conditions, personnel processes or other contractually protected issues, the MSP must be involved and sign off on the agreements before they can be implemented.  Our role is to assure that faculty interests and contractual rights are protected during the process.  We have had discussions with various levels of the administration about these issues and they acknowledge our role in helping to build the best possible solutions.

In an effort to do this, the MSP has set up a negotiating committee to help facilitate the development of agreements, to advise individuals and groups of faculty, and to work with the administration over changes that directly affect the working conditions of our members. There are clearly reorganization-related issues that will arise repeatedly and one of our goals is to develop guidelines to help make solutions consistent, transparent and in the best interest of MSP members.

We are scheduling meetings with faculty members in the most significantly affected departments to hear their questions and concerns.  However, a very large fraction of the faculty are clearly affected by the reorganization plans of the chancellor, and  we ask that you contact the MSP directly with any concerns or ideas for building the best possible outcome so that we can be fully informed about the range of issues in play. (545-2206, or msp@external.umass.edu)

Randall Phillis, MSP President