To the CSI Chapter,
I hope this finds everyone safe and healthy! I wanted to bring two things to your attention.
First, as we near the end of the semester and begin to turn in our grades, I wanted to clarify some confusion around an action being taken. An email was sent out recently by a group of professors call for a grade strike/delay this week. The letter is confusing and I have from members of our chapter who were confused.
To be clear, at the last two PSC Delegate Assembly meetings in April and May, there was a resolution on the floor asking professors not to submit their grades until the last day. This resolution was defeated in April by something like a 64-44 vote rejecting this action. In May it was soundly defeated by a 90-40 count. The PSC DA rejected this action twice.
The email that went out mentions the PSC and this is what has confused people. Any professor can do as they wish, but the action of withholding submission of grades until the last day is not an action the PSC as a union has endorsed. For the sake of transparency, I voted against this action last week.
Second, we’ll be holding our fourth labor-management meeting since April 13 with the administration tomorrow. We will be bringing many of the issues and concerns expressed at our last chapter and recent Town Hall. We’ll report to the chapter later in the week, along with strategies to continue our fight to advocate for the health and safety of all our members, as well as, fighting to save jobs for all our members.
In closing, the chapter EC wishes everyone safety and health. We want to express our deepest gratitude and respect for all the work and sacrifices this community has made to do all we can for our students, and for one another. This has been a challenging, traumatic semester, but we are very proud of everyone’s sense of integrity and compassion in the face of such a grave pandemic.
By taking care of ourselves, we take care of each other.
With gratitude,
CSI Chapter Chair and EC