February 2021 Regents Meeting Speakers

At the last UM Regents Meeting, a number of LEOs and allies spoke about the need for UM admin to respect and invest in Lecturer faculty by supporting our contract proposals. Here are a few highlights, and you can click on the links to see videos of their whole statements. 

Against “Required Disclosure of Felony Charges and/or Felony Convictions”: Nora Krinitsky

I am an alumna of this university, a Lecturer in the Residential College, the Interim Director of the Prison Creative Arts Project, a faculty director of the Carceral State Project, and a proud member of the Lecturer Employees’ Organization. ... I was dismayed when LEO received a proposal that would subject lecturers to SPG 601.38, “Required Disclosure of Felony Charges and/or Felony Convictions.” This policy is at odds with LEO’s core values and contravenes our duty to protect the best interests of our members … Surveillance and punishment are never paths to safety. Secure employment, living wages, affordable healthcare, fair workload expectations, equitable hiring and promotion practices--these are measures that actually promote safety and they are all part of the LEO contract campaign.  (see video of whole statement here)

Teaching Professor title: Lisa Young

I am a lecturer IV in the Anthropology on the Ann Arbor Campus. 

Last month I wrote numerous letters of recommendation in support of undergraduate student applications to graduate programs in anthropology, museum studies, and environmental science ... I also teach students to challenge their perspectives on museum objects through conversations with members of the Indigenous communities from which the museum collections originated. For my creative use of museum collections, technology, and intercultural communication, I was awarded the Provost’s Innovation in Teaching Prize. When the students asked me to write a letter of recommendation, they volunteered that they discussed what they had learned in the Museum Anthropology course in their graduate application statements.

I urge you to support the LEO proposal to add the working title of Teaching Professor as a way to honor the many contributions of lecturers to the outstanding education that students receive at the University of Michigan.  (see video of whole statement here)

Job security, pay parity, and investment in Flint and Dearborn: Tina ODonnell

I am a Lecturer I in Germanic Languages & Literatures at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor and former lecturer in Dearborn.

When I was hired for a lecturer position on the Dearborn campus, I finally felt like I had found a stable home: a position in a great department with wonderful people, better pay, and most amazing of all, health benefits. But I was sad to find that my betting days were not over. As each academic year ended, I was left with uncertainty as to whether I had a position at all in the Fall, whether I would have income and health insurance for myself and my family.

In late August, I learned that there would be no position for me in Dearborn. Fortunately, a colleague alerted me to an opening in Ann Arbor. This opportunity to move among campuses should be more readily available for other lecturers facing layoff.  Lecturers from Dearborn and Flint campuses provide the same high-quality instruction as those in Ann Arbor. They should receive the same pay for doing so and be able to teach classes on the other campuses.  (see video of whole statement here)

Invest in Lecs Because Lecs are Faculty: Jill Darling

I am a Lec II in my 9th year at the Dearborn campus, teaching academic and creative writing.

Last fall Lecturers at Dbn taught 58% of undergrad and 67% of 1st and 2nd year student credit hours, yet only a few are considered ‘full time governing faculty,’ which is restricted to Lecs III/IV, and some of those still don’t have voting rights. Often lecturers are not included when the general term ‘faculty’ is used. And we have many Lec IIs who teach full-time, serve students and departments through often voluntary and invisible labor, are paid less, and have less job security, though many have been at Dearborn for 10, or 20 years. 

LEO proposes increased investment across all campuses because, as the saying goes, our working conditions deeply affect our students’ learning conditions. At Dbn, 35% of lecturers have suffered full or partial layoff during this pandemic even though from 2019-2020 total Student Credit Hours only went down 3.2%. Admin has increased class sizes instead of better supporting faculty to help students in our classes. Investing in faculty who are in the classrooms with students is not only pedagogically smart but brilliant from an investment perspective. Investing in lecturers and extending the Go Blue Guarantee to Flint and Dearborn students would do wonders to increase retention and graduation rates.

We also have a responsibility to create opportunity and access for our students, who, at Dearborn and Flint include higher numbers of students of color, students with greater financial need, and more 1st generation college students and students from immigrant families, yet our students also pay more over their educational lives, on average, than those in Ann Arbor.

From 2014-2020 tuition increased 18% in Ann Arbor, 25% in Dearborn, and  30% in Flint, while enrollment went up 9% in Ann Arbor and went down 15% in Flint. And Flint families making less than 30k/year paid more than twice as much in tuition as Ann Arbor families in 2018-2019. (Ann Arbor $3166,  Dearborn $6751, and Flint $7955)

Faculty in Dearborn and Flint serve a diverse and often vulnerable student body, we are dedicated to our students, and we have experience and expertise in our fields. 

I have a colleague with a doctorate in education, who has single-or co-authored 10 articles and chapters in the last 5 years, collaborates in digital storytelling projects with teachers and students in South Africa, is in the running for a Fulbright, and as a lec II her professional achievements and service to campus remain mostly invisible. 

I have another colleague who has won writing and community awards and is deeply engaged in social justice and activism in the city of Detroit. She teaches for multiple programs including Composition, Creative Writing, and African and African American and Studies; works with students outside of the classroom on their poetry and fiction writing and developing portfolios for graduate school; is on committees and helps facilitate student groups, and as a Lec II she has no voting rights and little voice in departmental and college matters. 

Another colleague, a Lec II with nine years, took a voluntary, unpaid course release to be on the LEO bargaining team, but his class caps increased from 30 to 35 students. Teaching three sections, he’s likely bringing in about $140k after his bargain-basement pay-per-class. If he were a Lec IV, a job for which he’s extremely qualified, he may not have had to choose between pay and bargaining. And this is especially important, because Lecs like this are dedicated to bargaining in order to improve our working conditions so we can better meet the needs of our students.

I have an MFA, a PhD, and a book of scholarship forthcoming. I’ve published creative and academic essays and essays on teaching and pedagogy. I’ve worked at the Sweetland Center for Writing and for the Comprehensive Studies Program in AA, have passed two major reviews at Dbn and one in AA, and I’ve received great compliments on my teaching. Although complementary review letters are an important piece of professional respect, they also only go so far.

Our work is so important to our students’ success, and we are not asking for much in return. UM is the highest-ranked public university in the country according to the Wall Street Journal, and one of the wealthiest. Let’s go big. Let’s invest in all of our students and all of our faculty on all of our campuses.