Dear Colleagues,
As you are aware, the Academic Student Employees (ASE), represented by the United Auto Workers, voted to authorize their elected bargaining team to call a strike if circumstances warrant. The ASE unit is comprised of graduate and undergraduate teaching and research assistants, tutors, graders, and other academic student employees.
Yesterday during negotiations, WSU exchanged proposals that included every outstanding article under negotiation and provided a revised economic package to the United Auto Workers (UAW). The wages portion of the revised economic package is sizable and eliminates all salary ranges for assistantships less than $2,099.50 per month (Ranges 1-48) and provides a minimum 5% salary increase for those with salaries above $2099.50, both within ninety (90) calendar days of ratification. The proposal also includes a locality pay and educational milestone provision in year one and an additional 2% salary increase in year two. The package proposal among other items also creates new sick leave and vacation plans for this group.
If the proposal is adopted, WSU will need to make budget adjustments and reallocations to cover the increased payroll costs. The university also will ask the Washington Legislature to help with the added expenses but anticipates having to explore strategic reallocation of existing budgets. The increased compensation also would affect grant-funded positions.
HRS has created a “Negotiations Updates” website that will provide details of the package shortly. HRS has also prepared a “Job Actions & Work Stoppage Information – Q&A” website to answer questions that faculty, researchers, and staff members may have regarding possible job actions and work stoppages. This website is routinely updated, and I encourage you to review the same.
Should the ASE strike this week or next, the instructors of record and departments/colleges are responsible for ensuring our students can finish the semester as smoothly as possible. Every effort should be made to ensure that the activities of proctoring exams, grading exams, and other duties carried out by our graduate and teaching assistants are covered. As such, the guidance below has been developed to assist faculty in addressing issues with the potential strike (items 1-6) and understanding the implications to our undergraduate students if grading is not conducted appropriately (items 7-10).
We recognize this is an already trying time of year and colleagues throughout the system are exhausted. The potential of a strike will undoubtedly add more to everyone’s already overflowing plates. We thank you in advance for your willingness to lean in to protect the integrity of our educational mission for the undergraduate student body. Here are some answers to frequently asked questions:
- Employee right to strike
It is important to note that Washington State law (Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 41.56.120) does not grant state employees the right to strike. General legal opinion states that public employees cannot strike. However, we are aware that similar higher education groups in the state have participated in strikes/work stoppage in the past. - Access to coursework
Per Executive Policy 29, department chairs and school directors have responsibility for and authority over academic programs associated with their respective departments and schools. Academic directors generally oversee multiple academic programs on their campuses, and have responsibility for and authority over those programs as defined to be in their purview by the campus VCAA.As such, chairs, directors, and academic directors must have Canvas access for all courses being administered through their respective units. If you are a chair, director, or academic director and do not have “administrative support” access, please contact your department scheduler and have them associate you with all your courses. This level of access will ensure you have instructor-level access to the LMS with gradebook access. Per Academic Regulation 92 (grade records), the chair or director or their designees and the instructor shall have ready access to these records.
- Grading of final assignments
In preparing your final assignment, be aware that teaching assistants may not be available to assist with grading. To ensure smooth functioning of critical processes such as financial aid, academic standing review, sequential course scheduling, athletic eligibility, and graduation, grades are due on December 19 at 5:00 PM. Any potential delays should be discussed with your chair or college dean and communicated to the Office of the Registrar as soon as possible. - Final examinations
Final examinations must be held for courses that are required to hold a final examination per Academic Regulation 75. In general, the specific form of a final examination is within the instructor’s responsibility. - Adjustment of course grading
Some instructors or students may be interested in adjusting how courses are graded, for example using different weightings among categories of student work in the measurement of student achievement of the course’s learning objectives. Such changes should be considered carefully, but the grading scheme for a course must conform to the parameters of what was approved by the Faculty Senate when the course was approved. In addition, any changes should be conducted in ways that will not disadvantage students in one situation but advantage students in another. Students who see their grade as being arbitrarily impacted by any changes from what was described in the syllabus may wish to follow the informal and formal components of the undergraduate (Academic Regulation 104) and graduate grade grievance process. - Discussion with students
Please review your plans with your students as soon as you are able, in class and by email. If a strike occurs, there will be uncertainty for all, so patience should be counselled during finals week. - Fall course prerequisites
Satisfaction of prerequisite courses for Spring 2024 is not verified until after a final grade has been assigned for the Fall 2023 semester. Thus, students with missing grades may be dropped from dependent courses. The final prerequisite check for Spring 2024 is planned to take place on Friday, December 22, 2023. - Incomplete grades
The utilization of incomplete grades in response to grading difficulties arising from a strike is strongly discouraged and not a viable option. If the incomplete is not replaced with a letter grade during the specified time, the grade is changed to an F. As such, the wide-scale use of incomplete grades during an extenuating circumstance can present significant challenges to our students for financial aid, course enrollment, and/or graduation.In accordance with Academic Regulation 90, “an incomplete is the term used to indicate that a grade has been deferred. This option is for students who, for reasons beyond their control, are unable to complete their work on time, but it should not be used to accommodate difficulties associated with completing grading due to a strike. All outstanding incomplete work (including grades of I, X, and blank/no grade) must be completed and posted to the official transcript prior to the conferral of the degree. It is strongly recommended that students who are granted an Incomplete limit their total number of credits to 18 credits (including credits for the Incomplete course and any new courses) during the semester when they are finishing an Incomplete. Students who receive an I grade have up to the end of the ensuing year to complete the course, unless a shorter interval is specified by the instructor. If the incomplete is not made up during the specified time or the student repeats the course, the I is changed to an F. Instructors are required to submit an Incomplete Grade Report (IGR) to the departmental office with every I given. The IGR must specify conditions and requirements for completing the incomplete, as well as any time limitations less than one year.”
- Students on financial aid or academic notice
Instructors may be contacted by the Student Financial Services or a student’s college concerning specific students in unique situations for determination of student status in the course. Please do your best to accommodate these requests; any questions or concerns can be directed to Joy Scourey (Assistant Vice Provost, Student Financial Services) or Bill Davis (Interim Vice Provost for Academic Engagement and Student Achievement). - Other potential impacts
Although this will vary depending on individual circumstances, we acknowledge that failure to issue grades may impact students in other ways, including delays for students attempting to transfer to other institutions, students receiving scholarships, students subject to other external criteria (e.g., ROTC, Fulbright, international fellowships), and students graduating and enter the workforce or applying to subsequent graduate or professional training programs. Thus, we need to support one another in all ways possible to complete grading within the time allowed thereby mitigating risks to our students.
Concluding remark
I want to emphasize, our academic student employees are essential to the efficient and effective functioning of departments and schools throughout the WSU system. Recruiting and retaining graduate and other student employees and ensuring their success is critical to our mission as a land-grant, research university and is in alignment with our values as an institution.
As demonstrated by the sizable increase in the economic package presented during yesterday’s negotiation session, WSU is sincere in its efforts to come to a mutually acceptable resolution with the ASE, represented by the United Auto Workers. We want to do everything we can to ensure the success of our student employees and mitigate any impact on our undergraduate students as they work to complete their fall semester.
We sincerely appreciate your leadership as we continue to proactively support our students and educational mission.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth S. Chilton
Provost and Executive Vice President
Chancellor, WSU Pullman
Professor, Department of Anthropology