Welcome to the CFA’s blog. This blog will keep faculty and community members informed of current issues and concerns that the Campus Faculty Association is working on. If you have a topic you would like to write about, please don’t hesitate to contact the CFA and we will do our best to make this platform available to you.
Want to do More?
The GEO has been working without a contract for 121 days. The bargaining sessions have been long and the progress slow. For more details on the sessions themselves, please see uigeo.org.
In the meantime, here’s how you can show your support for the GEO during the bargaining process. Lend your voices today to help our graduate students to reach an agreement that recognizes graduate workers as researchers, teachers, and colleagues.
Sign the GEO’s petition to the administration:
Please share among your colleagues, family, friends, and anyone else you know who believes in fair working conditions for graduate labor.
Letters of support sent to the administration on GEO’s behalf will also make a big impact. Here are the key people to contact. You can find a sample letter to download and send on the CFA website.
Board of Trustees: (UIBOT@uillinois.edu)
President: Timothy L. Killeen (presidentkilleen@uillinois.edu)
Provost: Andreas C. Cangellaris (cangella@illinois.edu)
Chancellor: Robert J. Jones (chancellor@illinois.edu)
Other ways to show your support:
- Assure your TAs that you will not report to the administration if they go on strike and that you do not expect them to teach, grade, answer emails, etc.
- Encourage your TAs to mention the possibility of a strike to the students in their sections, so that they understand the issues at stake
- Demonstrate to the undergraduate students in your course that you, as a faculty member, also support the strike.
- Talk to other faculty in your department and in other departments and colleges about the GEO and the bargaining process. Explain why you support a strike. This will help inform those who may not know the details.
- If at all possible, GEO supporters should not teach in the buildings GEO would be picketing. Teaching in those buildings does mean crossing the picket line. Ideally professors would not teach at all, but if you decide to teach during the strike, you can support GEO by moving your classes to a different location outside the area that GEO will picket. If there is a strike, CFA will provide a list of alternate spaces where classes can be held.
- GEO supporters can join the picket lines as they have before.
- As always, wearing GEO swag and putting GEO posters on your office door is an excellent and effective way to show solidarity
To keep up with the bargaining progress and actions on campus, follow GEO on social media (Facebook: @uigeo, Twitter: @geo_uiuc, Instagram: @geo_uiuc).
Campus Faculty Association 