Education/Contract Committee

By Mary Gross, FA President

One of the primary goals of the FA’s Executive Council when the new team was elected in 2022 was to ensure broader participation and understanding of the FA’s work and most importantly about the Contract (CBA) which codifies all the working condition matters negotiated on behalf of the full time faculty. We developed the Education/Contract Committee, chaired by Annie Ngo and Mary Gross, to focus primarily on ensuring that information is regularly provided to faculty about the work of the FA and most specifically understanding the language in our nearly 200 page CBA.

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The FA had developed a web presence in 2015 after it received recognition from the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to serve as the exclusive representative of the full time faculty in all working condition matters. Over the first few years, the website developed, and occasionally some articles were written and shared to the faculty. 

In the last few years, the Education/Contract Committee worked to improve the FA Website, making it more comprehensive and user-friendly. Today, you will find not only the CBA in the Documents area, but our many MOUs, helpful forms and job aids, and our FA Constitution and Bylaws. We also created a Meetings page where you can find the meeting agendas and powerpoints with many Contract Spotlights or Quick Quizzes embedded which are learning opportunities for attendees and generally lead to robust Council discussions. We also developed a detailed Ombuds page that includes goals, resources, FAQs, and a direct link to request representation. More recently, we added an Endorsements page which contains the process for seeking political and/or legislative endorsements. The Membership page includes information on how to become a dues-paying member and explains what your dues work to support. Of course, we have a much more robust News & Articles page where you can find current and past articles of our now twice-per-semester Newsletter.

Our group also works to find many ways for faculty to learn about the Contract or ask questions. You can find our “Ask Annie” link on the webpage where questions come in and are often discussed in the subcommittee or become part of a Contract Spotlight at an FA Council meeting. This semester’s weekly Contract Tips developed as a way to highlight many new elements of the CBA as well as showcase other on-going benefits in a simple, easy to read email. The committee has also contributed to a “How to Read the Contract” document to assist faculty with understanding the structure of the CBA, find answers to their own questions, and offer suggestions on how to best utilize our many resources. We are also creating prompts to ask of our own CBA AI Assistant which is still being tested and under development. Finally, along with all groups, our committee provides ideas and input for our Education Luncheon events, ensuring that they are fun, interactive, and above all– Educational!

Please reach out to any member of the Education/Contract team with ideas for new areas to explore and share with all faculty through our various means.