On Friday night, the Board imposed a contract on Wright State faculty that will seriously damage the quality of education we provide our students, as well as the academic reputation of the University. AAUP-WSU (the American Association of University Professors, WSU chapter) will file a strike notice with Ohio SERB on Monday morning.

Despite the significant financial concessions and consistent offers to continue negotiating by AAUP-WSU, the Schrader administration and Wright State Board of Trustees have chosen to impose a “last best offer” on the teaching faculty represented by AAUP-WSU. President Marty Kich said, “They have refused to negotiate at all since our members overwhelmingly rejected the Fact-Finder’s report in early November. Despite their repeated promises to negotiate, and our repeated offers to do so, the Board has elected to impose a contract that damages our students and makes academics a low priority.”

The Board clearly intends to have fewer faculty teaching more and larger classes, and the imposed contract would enable them to effect such changes. The faculty feel compelled to stand up for the quality of the education we provide our students – individualized attention and a rich variety of academic offerings – and the value of the degrees our alumni have earned.

While faculty were working under the old contract, Wright State avoided fiscal watch and generated a $10 million surplus last year. But the Schrader administration and the Board continue to use the Board-created financial crisis as an excuse to undermine fundamental principles of higher education adhered to at virtually all American universities.

The imposed contract also eliminates our right to negotiate over healthcare. It would immediately result in Wright State faculty having the worst healthcare plans among Ohio’s state universities and provide the administration with unlimited authority to further slash coverage at their whim. Many other articles in their imposed contract diminish the faculty voice in university decisions.

Dr. Kich said, “Our faculty have been attempting to resolve this contract without a strike for twenty-four months, but our attempts have been repeatedly rebuffed. This reckless Board needs more faculty input and oversight, not less.”

January 5, 2019

Contact: Noeleen McIlvenna, 202-258-0879, mcilvenna2016@gmail.com

Contact: Marty Kich, 419-303-4619, martinkich@gmail.com

About AAUP-WSU

 AAUP-WSU – the American Association of University Professors, Wright State University Chapter – is the union representing all full-time WSU faculty (excepting only administrators) with appointments in the university’s primary academic colleges on both the Dayton and Celina campuses. [These colleges are the Colleges of Engineering and Computer Science; Education and Human Services; Liberal Arts; Nursing and Health; Science and Mathematics; the Lake Campus; and the Raj Soin College of Business.]

Collective bargaining for WSU’s tenured and tenure-eligible faculty began in spring 1998 and was expanded to include non-tenure-eligible faculty in fall 2012, both via secret ballot votes overseen by Ohio’s State Employment Relations Board.

About AAUP

 The mission of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is to advance academic freedom and shared governance; to define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; to promote the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education; to help the higher education community organize to make our goals a reality; and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good. Founded in 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country’s colleges and universities.