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University

News for lecturers and librarians working at the University of California. 

California Teacher lecturers librarians

Building a member-driven union at the university
An effective site rep structure reaches lecturers, librarians where they work

At UC Berkeley, 16 lecturer site representatives are fanning out across the sprawling campus. In Davis, the union is fielding at least 15. In both places, the effort to meet the challenge of a new era in public sector labor relations is part of an even larger move to change the culture of the union. 

California Teacher new employee orientation

Unions get full and timely access to new employees
New law leads to union negotiating rules for employee orientation

In April 2016, Julia Troche applied to be a lecturer in Egyptology at UCLA. “It was my alma mater as an undergrad, so this was a special position for me, a chance to give back to the institution that gave me so much,” she says. She’d received an email from the department chair of Near Eastern Language and Culture asking her to apply. “She told me there was no guarantee of continuing employment, but it would put me in a good place while I looked for a tenure-track appointment.”

California Teacher contingent faculty academic freedom

Contingent faculty and academic freedom in the age of Trump
Organizing the disenfranchised is the key to success

By Bob Samuels, President UC-AFT

Now that more than 75 percent of the instructors teaching in higher education in the United States do not have tenure, it is important to think about how the current political climate affects those vulnerable teachers. Although we should pay attention to how all faculty are being threatened, non-tenured faculty are in an especially exposed position because they often lack any type of academic freedom or shared governance rights. 

California Teacher union fair share

Members unite to fight Trump’s immigration orders
Council builds solidarity by engaging with members on issues that unite

Before the election our focus was on leadership development,” says Mia McIver, vice president for organizing for the University Council-AFT, “and the election brought us a sense of new urgency.” Strong leaders will provide the underpinning for the campaigns the union will undertake as it faces the Trump administration and a predictable tsunami of anti-union and anti-education measures.

California Teacher librarians

Librarians negotiate professional development and salary
Entry-level pay lower than at CSU and the community colleges

The University Council-AFT is negotiating with UC over two key articles of its contract covering librarians — salaries and professional development funds — says Axel Borg, distinguished wine and food science bibliographer at UC Davis. He sums up the common concerns between the union and the university as competitiveness, compression, and consistency. 

California Teacher librarians educational technology union communications

Librarian masters digital tools for workplace and union
Carla Arbagey creates infographics to illustrate workload

UC Riverside librarian Carla Arbagey says, “Technology is like air to me.” It is essential in the library, where she integrates systems and tracks information on more than 3.4 million items. She is the winner of the 2014 Technology New Leader Award from the California Library Association, and a self-described “type-A personality” who likes things to be tidy, organized, and efficient.

California Teacher lecturers librarians

UCLA professor leads mobilization of lecturers and librarians
Statewide campaign builds on established strength in campus locals

Goetz Wolff has taught at UCLA for more than 20 years, but was generally more involved with Southern California’s vibrant labor movement than with the union on his job. Wolff, for example, earned high praise for his six years as research director at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, but barely knew the ins and outs of the University Council-AFT.

California Teacher labor art

Photographer brings the art of class struggle to wide audience
Previously censored works of San Diego professor Fred Lonidier in Whitney Biennial

Fred Lonidier’s artwork depicting the lives and struggles of maquiladora workers was banished from the Autonomous University of Baja California in 2005. This month artwork telling the story of that censorship will go up on the walls of New York’s prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art as part of its renowned Biennial exhibition.

California Teacher librarians

Reference librarians meet complex queries with a human touch
Highly skilled professionals imperiled by administrative cost-cutting, online chat

“We no longer have a visible reference desk in our two main libraries,” reports Miki Goral, a UCLA librarian of 43 years. “Students first have to go to the circulation desk. If the student working there thinks they need to talk to a reference librarian, they often refer them to a 24/7 online chat, which is staffed by a UC librarian only during certain hours.

Otherwise they could be chatting with a librarian in New York, or even Australia. Plus chatting can take 40 minutes to do what you can do in 5 if you’re actually talking.”

Article international

How and why Mexico’s City University came to be
Q&A with Manuel Perez Rocha, founding president of the university

Q&A by David Bacon, Labor Journalist

Manuel Perez Rocha was the founding president of the first major university established in Mexico City in decades, the Autonomous University of Mexico City. Mexico doesn’t have the equivalent of two-year community colleges, but the UACM is very close to the ideas on which our community college system is based.

California Teacher lecturers Rank & Files

Tonkovich teaches and organizes with humor, joy and irony
UC Irvine lecturer and author credits mentors, and Ronald Reagan, for his activism

Q&A with Andrew Tonkovich

Andrew Tonkovich is a  lecturer in the English department at UC Irvine and president of UC-AFT Irvine, Local 2226. He edits the literary magazine Santa Monica Review, and hosts Bibliocracy Radio, a weekly books show on KPFK 90.7 FM in Southern California. Recent short stories, essays and reviews of his have appeared in Faultline, The Rattling Wall, OC Weekly and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

California Teacher lecturers librarians

Classics lecturer maintains classic ideas about unions
New local president Rundin says union makes lecturer job worth having

Classics lecturer John Rundin feels privileged to pass on to another generation the cultural treasures that were given to him by the previous generation. The teacher of Latin and ancient Greek is one of two recipients of this year’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the UC Davis Academic Federation.

“I live my job, love what I do, and I love my students,” says Rundin. “It is a great honor.”