NFA Advocacy in Action
Legislature 2009
§ - Formed effective lobbying coalition with other public service employee advocacy groups.
§ - Successfully lobbied for rejection of the governor's proposed $90 million cuts to PEBP health benefits for active and retired employees and their families.
§ - Successfully lobbied for passage and veto override of domestic partner benefits legislation.
Board of Regents 2009
§ - Seated 4 representatives (2 from CSN's NFA chapter) on Regents' Personnel Task Force charged with making recommendations for the implementation of SB 433, the 4.6% pay cut mandate.
§ - Submitted recommendations to the task force which were later adopted as BOR policy for the current biennium:
· using personnel cost savings (hiring freezes, etc.) to offset the required pay cuts / furloughs for the biennium's first year;
· minimizing pay cuts for untenured and other faculty not protected by NSHE Code by limiting furloughs to the biennium's second year;
· implementing workload increases as tenured faculty's recovery of cost savings equivalent to furlough;
· upholding Code provisions protecting due process in contract modification for untenured faculty and shielding tenured faculty from pay cuts;
· advising BOR against declaring financial exigency and for making SB 433 changes to Code temporary, applicable to this biennium only;
· requiring institution presidents to confer with their Faculty Senates in making faculty workload adjustments; and
· advocating cost savings plans that preserve the highest rates of student enrollment feasible under current budget realities.
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Our Chapter President's Message...
Dear Faculty,
CSN NFA continues its strong advocacy for academic freedom, tenure, shared governance, and due process. As part of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), we fight for legislation to protect faculty in higher education. This includes full-time faculty, part-time faculty, tenured faculty, non-tenured faculty, market value faculty, administrative faculty, and others.
At CSN NFA, we are higher education professionals providing access to quality higher education to all students in our community. Our service area does not have boundaries. We cross county lines, state lines, and country borders.
The CSN NFA chapter has been very active throughout its life in creating a high quality work and learning environment. As we embark on the 2009-2010 academic year, we continue to pursue many activities and programs that promote and strengthen chapter membership, faculty development, academic freedom, shared governance, and community unity. We encourage all CSN faculty to become active, contributing, participating NFA members to strengthen our position in our advocacy efforts.
Respectfully submitted,
Shari Lyman, CSN NFA Chapter President
Shari Lyman, Ph.D.
Economics Professor
College of Southern Nevada
Department of Social Sciences
Mail Stop S2C
e-mail: shari.lyman@csn.edu
office: 702-651-4122
Top 10 Reasons to Join NFA
- NFA protects the rights of faculty for free and open investigation, speech and thought.
- NFA provides an organization to advocate those rights to institution administrators.
- NFA provides an effective voice for faculty and higher education in the Nevada Legislature
- NFA is an advocate and watchdog for faculty salary and benefits and, for several years, has had an NFA member on the PEBP Board
- NFA provides legal advice for members and non-members when rights are in question.
- NFA provides legal consultations to members on faculty rights issues.
- NFA has been directly responsible for establishing the NSHE merit pool and securing competitive salaries for faculty.
- NFA is the Nevada affiliate of the American Association of University Professors, the longest existing organization for advocacy of faculty.
- NFA has great people in the organization who uniformly feel that protection of the university is critically important to a functioning society.
- NFA members receive the AAUP publication ACADEME, which keeps members up to date on national trends offaculty employment issues.
Contributed by Glenn C. Miller, UNR NFA |
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