Members of the University of Kansas faculty and staff union rallied on campus Wednesday, restless after well more than a year of bargaining had yet to produce a contract.
Students and faculty spoke to the group, urging them to continue showing up until a fair contract is signed. Marsha McCartney, a professor in the psychology department and member of the union’s negotiations team, said the group’s August rally helped spur negotiations along.
A negotiations meeting was happening during the demonstration. After the rally, members walked down Jayhawk Boulevard to Watson Library, where the meeting was being held.
UAKU won its election in April 2024 with 86% of academics voting in favor.
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The union represents full-time and part-time tenured and non-tenured faculty — as well as teaching, research, clinical and online professors, lecturers, curators, librarians, scientists who conduct grant-funded research and other categories of faculty and academic staff. It’s affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors.
Bona Bones, an assistant professor of animation, said when they first came to KU this year, they were attracted by the faculty union. But when they found out the union was still fighting for a contract, they thought it was a disgrace.
“Chancellor (Doug) Girod: expect to see us everywhere,” Bones said.
McCartney and Ben Chappell, a professor in KU’s Department of American Studies, updated rallygoers on the negotiations process.
McCartney said one of the holdups for the contract was a small phrase in a section on shared governance. She also said the union was pushing for increased pay, arguing they aren’t asking for luxury, but respect.
“We need management to pay better attention,” McCartney said. “How do we do that? We show up. We are showing up right now at this rally.”
KU spokesperson Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said KU leaders welcome continued conversations with faculty about ways to move the university forward. She did not respond to questions about what was holding up negotiations.
Chappell said he was disheartened by a quote from Girod last week saying KU would need a smaller workforce to increase faculty pay.
“There was no curiosity there about what caused the budget crisis that we’re in currently,” Chappell said. “Or what decisions got us here. There is only a vision to reduce the people who do the work that makes this a university. The vision is to do less. It’s to offer our students less. It’s being less. That is not a vision of leadership to be a better university.”
Instead, Chappell said, the union thinks budgets show priorities and wants to offer an alternate vision of how KU can empower faculty to do their best work.
Chappell said since he arrived at KU in 2007, it has felt like there has always been some sort of crisis happening. Oftentimes, he said KU leaders use those crises to consolidate power. Chappell argued there should be more consideration of how top-down decision-making could actually create crises.
A handful of students also attended the rally and spoke to the faculty.
“Let’s be clear, without you, there is no KU,” said Sarah Reuben-Hallock, a student studying environmental science. “You teach us. You advise us. You’re shaping the leaders of tomorrow. So why is KU not treating you like you matter today?”
Sasha Sharman is an undergraduate student who sits on both the University Senate and Student Senate. They said shared governance is hard to achieve when the Student Senate operates at the advice and consent of the chancellor.
“They’ve tried to ignore the union, but the union is different,” Sharman said. “It does not operate at the advice and consent of the chancellor. It operates at the advice and consent of us.”
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Cuyler Dunn (he/him), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since April 2022, is a student at the University of Kansas School of Journalism. He is a graduate of Lawrence High School where he was the editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, The Budget, and was named the 2022 Kansas High School Journalist of the Year. Read his complete bio here. Read more of his work for the Times here.
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