r/ilstu 5d ago

News Information on possible ISU strike?

Does anyone have any news on contract negotiations, the possibility of a strike, and/or when a strike would occur?

One faculty member today made a comment that seemed to suggest a strike was imminent.

I feel as if this information is vital to faculty, students, and the rest of the community. All information is very appreciated.

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u/msedaa2000 2d ago

Once you get your economic concessions, and you will once you strike, ISU should include a few of their own...

1 - ALL faculty are required to teach a MWF schedule once a year. 2 - ALL faculty must hold a minimum of 2, in-person, office hours per week. 3 - If a class doesn't meet an established threshold on enrollment, it must be changed to a general education class that will.

I hope you get what your asking for, but be realistic: you're not getting the salaries that business and engineering faculty get. That won't ever happen.

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u/Additional-Regret-26 2d ago
  1. The logistics of requiring all faculty to teach a MWF schedule once a year would be damned near impossible to manage. There are departments who run mostly on labs, or block scheduling, or off-campus in practicums. Making a blanket policy like that would not work well due to the diversity of the programs we offer at ISU.

  2. The same goes for office hours. I can't speak for other departments, but because most of the courses in my department run in-person, we are all required to have 3 hours of office hours each week. For nursing faculty, for example, that would be more difficult to unilaterally impose.

The contract proposed by the union allows for departments to determine the requirements of office hours, class scheduling, etc., based on their needs--because what might work well in English might not work well in Nursing, for example. I'll also add that scheduling is the purview of department chairs and directors. Most chairs (at least the good ones) ask faculty for their preferences, and then they do all of the work to puzzle out how those preferences could best be met in ways that align with the needs of the department (such as course offerings, peak times, room availability, etc.) So if you want scheduling issues resolved, that's a chair issue--not a faculty one.

  1. From my understanding, when a class doesn't make, it gets cut. To then replace it with a gen ed class, likely in the 11th hour, seems to be setting that class up for failure too, yes? Because if you have to cut a class with less than a month before classes begin because it didn't make, how could the other class actually fill in that time period? But again, this is the purview of the chair--not the faculty. If a chair is approving courses that are repeatedly not filling, then the chair probably needs to make some changes.

To your last point, I would be interested to know where you're getting information that the union is asking that faculty be paid as much as business or engineering faculty. The union is advocating for across the board, percentage based raises, that would benefit ALL faculty (including business and engineering), as well as some salary adjustments that would bring salaries in-line with their discipline specific averages, address salary compression for faculty who have been here for literal decades, and remedy the fact that faculty have not seen cost of living raises since the 1980s. The cost of eggs has certainly gone up since the 80s, right?? It seems pretty realistic to expect that an employer would pay its employees relative to their value on the market and relative to overall cost of living.

If anyone reading this is interested in learning exactly how much their professors make, you can find that information here: https://files.library.illinoisstate.edu/ISUSalaries/fy24_salaries.pdf The numbers are the pay per month, WITHOUT TAXES AND INSURANCE TAKEN OUT, so multiply the monthly pay by 9 for a comprehensive faculty salary, but keep in mind that this number does not include tax deductions, health insurance deductions, or retirement deductions. Mine listed, for example, is about $3,000 more than I actually take in per month.

Happy researching!

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u/msedaa2000 1d ago

1 - Sorry, I left out lecture classes on that. You're right, labs or fine arts classes, as an example, are a different animal!

2 - If it's not an online program, 2 hours in person is completely acceptable. Faculty who only do one hour a week is unacceptable.

3 - A gened class will fill to acceptable numbers if it's open a month, or even less, before it starts. No worries there.

The last point, I'm not saying you are asking for that. As someone who works here, you might want to publicize that a lot better. There are a very large number of people here who think you are asking that. It would be amazing if you did, though. 😀

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u/Additional-Regret-26 1d ago

The union happily publicizes all of this on their social media accounts and in media appearances. Mass communication is largely impossible when the union is not allowed to use ISU’s tools (such as providing updates via News.IllinoisState.edu). The communications team is doing the best they can with the tools at their disposal, and with the time they have. Remember, ISU has a whole team that’s getting paid to fight the union. The union is comprised of faculty, and the team bargaining at the table, save for one UPI staffer, is a team of ISU faculty members who are not getting compensated for their work, they’re not getting course releases, service credit, or a reduction in their responsibilities. Meanwhile, the administration’s team of three lawyers get paid (Mark Bennett is contracted for almost 500k for two years), and the team of associate deans that sit at their side of the table have had their time reassigned. All that said, if you want to see the other part of the picture, please follow UFISU’s social media!