We, the “clinical track/non-tenure” faculty of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, are asking you, our fellow faculty members and colleagues, to sign this petition to help us achieve our shared goal for just and equitable work conditions, as are enjoyed by faculty who assume our workload and responsibilities.

Here is some background about our concerns:

Nursing faculty (clinical track/NTT) have been bargaining with the UMass Boston Administration, and attempted to finalize bargaining processes along with our NTT/clinical track colleagues at UMass Amherst for a number of years. Our bargaining focuses on the need to place all current NTT faculty onto a clinical track, along with related titles codified, terms of employment, including promotion, and work conditions-workload. We put forth proposals that had been accepted in principle more so by the Administration at Amherst.

However, the UMass Boston Administration has not accepted the proposals-proposals that we believed were fair and just. As a result, bargaining has stopped and we remain in limbo. This means that:

1.       We continue to work with varying titles (lecturer, senior lecturer, assistant clinical professor, associate clinical professor, etc.) with no consistency or set guidelines

2.       We continue to work with no related clear guidelines for promotion, workload, salary floors, etc.

3.       We continue to be burdened with workload expectations that exceed norms for other faculty on campus.

4.       We continue to receive no acknowledgement or appraisal for our efforts for the hours of work we perform in scholarship, clinical practice, and service to the college, including work performance as program coordinators and directors, within our annual faculty reviews (as has been stated that we currently can “only” be evaluated on teaching, according to the Redbook)

We recognize that no efforts are being put forth by university administration for continued work on clinical track implementation. Therefore, we need to implement new strategies at this time, to state clearly that the cessation of the bargaining process is unacceptable, and that we can no longer accept the status quo.  Having done so has contributed to numerous unhealthy departmental processes and outcomes, and only furthers an unhealthy work environment within the College of Nursing and Health Sciences and University of Massachusetts Boston.

We, UMass’s students, staff, faculty and community members, call on the Administration to come back to the bargaining table immediately so that the clinical track faculty can resolve their outstanding issues and achieve the just and equitable work conditions that they deserve.