After long, arduous deliberations, NEIU’s chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI) celebrated the contract agreement between the university faculty and administration at Alumni Hall on Tuesday, Nov. 1. The contract negotiations took place over a period of several years, coming to a boiling point at the end of the 2010-2011 academic year. Fortunately for students, and the university community as a whole, an agreement was finally made.
The time had come for everyone involved to breathe a sigh of relief and acknowledge the success of the new agreement. After a long process that was trying for students, faculty and administration, all those involved met to celebrate. The “Celebrate the Contract” ceremony was led by UPI board members Erica Meiners, Charles Steinwedel and Sophia Mihic.
With a significant amount of students, faculty and administration present, professor Mihic opened by stating, “We are here to celebrate what all unions celebrate, hard work.” The hard work carried out by both sides had to bring into agreement various parts of the contract, with detailed text needing to be negotiated. The contract contains a total of 38 articles. Two new areas were revised and drafted, with the two new portions of the contract dealing with academic freedom and the newly implemented intellectual property committee.
The mounting tension and disagreement that was seen throughout the 2010-2011 academic year was nonexistent at this celebratory event. Mihic stated, “This is a negotiated contract.” The contract will now represent the university’s new identity. Both sides of the bargaining table were acknowledged, including various members of academic and university departments. Among those were Academic Affairs, the College of Education and the Ronald Williams Library. President Hahs was also acknowledged with professor Mihic, who said to Hahs, “Thanks for finishing this puppy off.”
The contract was a long time coming and at the end, when looking at the summary of the tentative agreement, there are a significant amount of changes that were made to several articles. Out of the 38 articles in the contract, the final agreement had 20 revised articles, eight of which only saw some “language deletion for clarity” and 12 that were updated and changed. Of all the articles present in the contract, some notable ones include: compensable fringe benefits, grievance procedure, promotion policy, evaluation and evaluation criteria and one of the newest additions, academic freedom. This article on academic freedom led Mihic to state that students would benefit from it because it would allow professors to have more liberty in preparing their curriculum. Academic freedom is now represented on the tentative agreement as a quote from Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations. It says, ” At its simplest, academic freedom may be defined as the freedom to conduct research, teach, speak, and publish, subject to the norms and standards of scholarly inquiry, without interference or penalty…”
The contract celebration was a closing to a long process and students no longer have to worry about a strike that would disrupt any graduation plans. Although students attend NEIU to learn from professors, Mihic said that students are important in coming to an agreement, because it is the professors who expect to learn from the students. In closing, Mihic said, “It’s a contract, it’s a new future and we thank everyone here today.”