CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Faculty who work on a year-to-year basis at the University of Illinois-Chicago are calling for better treatment by the university, especially when it comes to letting them know if they’ll be back in the fall.
The UIC United Faculty provided a list of demands to the UIC board of trustees calling for no-layoffs of non-tenure track faculty in the fall and to let contract teachers know by June 1 whether they’ll have jobs next year, among other things.
Jeff Schuhrke a contracted instructor in the history department. He said even when UIC lays off non-tenure-track teachers, the university calls it a non-renewal, not a layoff.
"The implication being that it’s a gig and not a real job, as if teaching hundreds of university students full-time is something that you just do on the side to earn some extra cash," he said.
Schuhrke said he and others like him deserve to know by June 1 whether they’ll be hired on again for the fall semester.
"What my job title means as a visiting lecturer is not that I have a secure position at another institution and that I’m simply 'visiting' UIC. I’m actually teaching at UIC as my full-time job," he said.
Tenured Professor Janet Smith is standing up for non-tenure track faculty.
"Today, I ask the board of trustees to shift its investment intention from Wall St. to Halsted Street," she said.
UIC’s chancellor said the administration stands "in awe at the efforts and commitment” of all of its faculty, and he’ll take into account the challenges of the pandemic when making personnel decisions.
But, he added, he could not agree to “a blanket waiver of the carefully negotiated retention and reappointment provisions in the labor contract that UICUF approved. Such decisions relating to the size of the workforce are historically and legally a key responsibility of the leadership of the university.”
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