President’s Update

By Mary Gross, FA President

I am pleased to report that after months of negotiation and FA’s firm stances on new and improved contractual language for Academic Freedom, we have a tentative agreement with the District. We are close to finalizing language on Intellectual Property and hope that occurs before spring break. Due to your FA negotiating team’s perseverance, advocacy, and patience, our CBA will now have strong language that protects faculty rights in these areas, not just a mention of an AP or BP that can be changed without negotiations. While the District resisted wanting language in the CBA, ultimately our arguments won the day, and we will have the protections only language in a contractual agreement can afford.

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On Friday, April 10 at our All Faculty Education Luncheon, we will be presenting the detailed language, review scenarios, and answer questions. We will then move to a vote before the end of the semester where all FA members will have the opportunity to ratify this groundbreaking language.

In the midst of all this, we had to initiate a Grievance with the District over their interpretation of C.8.0: NonContractual Assignments: Full Time Faculty Overload. When the new contract was ratified last spring, a positive change was the removal of  language mandating reassigned time (RT) could only be placed “in load,” meaning any overload teaching assignments, capped at Step 10, would be moved to overload. You may recall an article in our May 2025 Newsletter that addressed the fact that faculty could now select RT as overload on their loadcard which would benefit the majority of faculty. In early August, the FA created an “overload selection tool” and shared that with all faculty as a way to determine whether selecting classroom or RT as overload would be more advantageous. Then because Surf wasn’t quite configured to allow this change, the District indicated that as a temporary work around, all RT would be identified as overload BUT if it benefited a faculty member to place their teaching as overload (mainly those in Steps 1-10) they would notify their deans, and it would be manually corrected by Payroll. Later in the fall, with the District’s assistance, the FA created a methodology to identify the faculty impacted and the differential pay, and we provided it to the District. Yet, at our first meeting with the District in January, they claimed that only “eligible” overload assignments could be selected and that they would not be doing any manual overrides. So, the FA initiated a Grievance on behalf of all its unit members within the contractual timeline, and the first step, an informal conference took place on February 25 in an attempt to resolve. The District has 10 working days from this meeting to issue their response which will either offer a resolution or move the Grievance to Level 2. Stay tuned!

As I come upon my last few months as your FA President, I couldn’t be more excited to pass the baton to Billy Gunn and the rest of the 2026-2028 Executive Team: dara- VP; Luke- Ombudsperson; and Jeanine Sepulveda and Michelle Farnam as Executive members. This is such a well-rounded team with very experienced leaders along with new members who will lend a fresh perspective and new energy for the next two years. Per the FA Constitution and Bylaws, I will remain on the Executive Council for one-year as Immediate Past President to assist in the transition and take on any duties assigned. Believe it or not, the team will start initial planning next year for the major contract reopener in 2028. As always, your input and suggestions will be a critical part of the process.  

Please join me in supporting this new leadership team and enjoy reading their introductory statements in this newsletter.

Mary