[mpen-dayton] Greater Miami Valley Events & News

FYI. Best, Munsup

P.S. Please reply back to me with 'unsubscribe' added to the subject line if you no longer want to receive my e-Newsletters. The convenient link to unsubscribe is no longer available due to security reasons to protect my email servers.

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• (Feb. 25) FW: Calendars of Various Faiths: Eastern Orthodox and Baha'i Calendars
• (Feb. 27) FW: Guardianship Training
• (Mar. 1) FW: Empty Bowls
• (Mar. 3) FW: Save Goodsam Rally
• FW: Response from AAUP-WSU to President Schrader's News Release 2/9
• FW: [WSU-OFFICIAL-L] Letter to the Campus Community Regarding DACA
• FW: FW: SAPC February/March 2018 Newsletter

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From: Colette Harrison
Subject: Calendars of Various Faiths: Eastern Orthodox and Baha'i Calendars

The Interfaith Forum of Greater Dayton is happy to announce our next program series Exploring the Calendars of Various Faiths. It begins this coming Sunday, February 25 (3:00 - 5:00pm) at our usual location: Christ United Methodist Church, 3440 Shroyer Rd, Kettering.

** We begin with presentations of the Eastern Orthodox and Baha'i Calendars. **

Should you be curious about other religion's calendars, please do let us know! Also, if you have any suggestions for topics of interest that you'd like to know more about from different faith perspectives, let us know that as well.

As usual, we ask that if you bring food to share, please no shellfish or pork due to various dietary restrictions. Also, if bringing something homemade, it would help everyone make healthy informed choices if you add a note showing the ingredients.

If you haven't done so already, we would appreciate you liking our Facebook page. Please feel free to spread the word about our monthly gatherings, and watch for postings about our next program(s). You can also contact us by email at: InterfaithForumGreaterDayton@gmail.com

 

 

From: David K. Greer
Subject: FW: Empty Bowls March 1

Please join us Thursday, March 1, for the 8th annual Empty Bowls event!

What is Empty Bowls?

A very unique event featuring a variety of ceramic bowls, delicious soups, warm breads, and desserts. Select your bowl and fill it as often as you like with soups and breads from area restaurants and chefs, including: Old Scratch Pizza, Jimmie's Ladder 11, Mama Disalvos, Mudlick Tap House, Christopher's Restaurant, Greek Isle Deli, Coco's, Carmen's Deli, and more.... and we haven't even mentioned breads and desserts yet! You keep the bowl as your keepsake and reminder of the event.
   

• Where: University of Dayton, 1700 South Patterson Boulevard (across from Carillon Park)
• When: Come in anytime between 5:00-7:30pm
• Cost: $25 minimum donation per person in advance. 100% of proceeds go to the House of Bread.
• How: Register in advance by visiting the House of Bread website, www.houseofbread.org and clicking on Empty Bowls in top left hand corner.

Questions: Email melodie@houseofbread.org

 

 

From: Carrie J. Rogge
Subject: Guardianship Training

Please see the information on an upcoming training that will focus on Guardianship issues.  Space is limited so please plan to register soon!  And, thank you for forwarding this email on to others.

 

From: David K.
Subject: FW: Save Good Sam Rally

Community Rally at Good Samaritan Hospital

March 3^rd, Satuday At 10 AM

Join us as we rally together Saturday March 3^rd at 10 am at Good Samaritan Hospital to
  

1. Support patients of Good Samaritan Hospital
2. Support Good Samaritan Hospital medical staff
3. Support neighboring communities impacted by
   this attempt to close Good Samaritan Hospital

Join us and help save our community and people in it!

 

 

From: AAUP-WSU
Subject: Response from AAUP-WSU to President Schrader's News Release 2/9
(Munsup's Note: (1) AAUP-WSU to President Schrader's News Release 2/9 and
                               (2) a related DDN article based on her News Release are copied below)

This is a response from AAUP-WSU to the Dayton Daily News article "Contract Talks Thaw between Wright State Faculty Union, Administration" (February 11) that seems to be based largely on a news release on February 9 from Cheryl Schrader, President of Wright State, which was also distributed to our campus community. The article and news release express the administration/Board's perspective on the protracted contract negotiations between the WSU administration/Board and the full-time teaching faculty in the seven academic colleges who are represented by AAUP-WSU. AAUP-WSU does not entirely share the administration/Board's perspective on the state of those negotiations.

The excerpts from the DDN article and President Schrader's news release are in italics. The responses from AAUP-WSU are not.
_______________________

. . . no matter what happens, our students' hard work and progress toward their academic goals will not be impeded nor will our students be prevented from receiving credit for the classes they are taking or from graduating on schedule.

Maintaining the quality of our academic programs and preserving the opportunity for our students to achieve their goals, I believe, continues to be the highest priority of everyone at Wright State University.

Administration/Board mismanagement of WSU has already resulted in fewer faculty to teach students and fewer classes that students can take. Students' progress to graduation has already been impeded. AAUP-WSU is trying to protect the core academic mission of the university, so that our students do not have to continue facing the repercussions of irresponsible administrative decisions and the failure of the Board of Trustees to meet its fiduciary responsibility, which together have led to the current financial crisis.

Wright State University's administration is back in contract negotiations with the school's faculty union after a tense few months.

The fact finder also shared that he will not issue his report of recommendations until April 19.

Wright State's administration is not back in contract negotiations with the school's faculty union. Consequently, the tension is most definitely still present. It began last March when the administration stopped negotiating, and so it has existed for more than a "few months"; and no negotiations or other meetings have been scheduled between the parties until fact-finding begins on April 3-4.

The fact-finder has agreed to issue his report no later than April 19 so that faculty have a full opportunity to vote on whether or not to accept it before the spring semester ends.

The parties began fact-finding on February 28^th, but the administration's outside attorney said, during his opening statement, that the administration was interested in continuing negotiations. They implied that they were willing to compromise on some of the open issues. As a result, the parties agreed to engage in mediation and to postpone the fact-finding hearing. During mediation, the parties reached an agreement on some of the open issues. However, there are a larger number of issues that are critical to the AAUP that have remained open because, on those issues, the administration has continued to be inflexible on what we view as extreme proposals.

In the event that both parties do not ratify the contract, they will return to final negotiations.

First, there will be no contract to ratify since the parties are not negotiating. There will be a fact-finder's report and each party can either accept or reject the fact-finder's report after it is issued. In the event that one or both of the parties reject the fact-finder's report, it is possible that they will return to negotiations; however, it is also possible that faculty would strike.

Tensions between administrators and members of the Wright State chapter of the Association of American University Professors reached a peak late last month. Faculty union members protested at a budget forum and threatened to call a strike if a deal was not reached.

AAUP-WSU members are voting now on strike authorization—defined below. Thus far, about 89% of those eligible have voted, with over 89% voting yes on the strike authorization. In fact, a very large portion of the votes were cast within three days of the ballots being available.

Strike authorization: even after the strike authorization vote ends, a strike cannot take place until the fact-finder's report (due by midnight on April 19) is issued, and then only if (1) AAUP-WSU members (or the administration) reject the report by a 60% majority in voting that must be completed by April 27, and (2) the AAUP-WSU Executive Committee votes by a 60% majority to initiate a strike. So the strike authorization, in essence, permits the Executive Committee to call a strike if the fact-finder's report is rejected by more than 60% of our members.

"The parties have reached tentative agreements on many of the articles for the next contract, though several articles remain unresolved and are under discussion," Schrader said in the campus email.

There are indeed "several" unresolved articles. Among the major unresolved issues are the following:

Employment Security

The administration's proposals would (1) make it easier for the administration to dismiss faculty, even long-serving faculty, not for performance but for financial reasons that extend well beyond anything reasonably definable as a crisis, and (2) make it more difficult for non-tenure-eligible faculty to attain any sort of meaningful job security.

In recent meetings, the administration's negotiating team has made it very clear that they want to further reduce the number of faculty, even though WSU already has 74 fewer full-time faculty than only a few years ago, with the result that annual faculty salaries and benefits have already been cut by $5.4 million.

Workload

The administration wants to nullify workload agreements signed as long as seven years ago. These agreements specify an appropriate balance between the three basic types of work faculty do: teaching students; engaging in service to the University, community, and profession; and undertaking research and other scholarly activities. These agreements are, by the way, not even part of the contract but, instead, separate agreements between the administration and the faculty—because the administration/Board requested that it be done that way.

Summer Teaching

The administration wants to be able to bypass full-time faculty in assigning summer teaching. This proposal follows mismanagement of summer class scheduling that has already impeded students' progress to graduation, cost the university several million dollars in revenue last summer, and effectively cut 1.7% from faculty pay.

Furloughs

The possibility of "faculty furloughs" was introduced by the administration for the first time shortly before the fact-finding hearing. However, "faculty furloughs," as proposed by the administration, is a misnomer. The administration is proposing that faculty continue to do the same amount of teaching, the same amount of service, the same amount of advising, and the same amount of scholarship, but for less money. That's not a furlough–-it is simply a wage reduction and is unacceptable to the AAUP, especially in light of the fact that the administration continues to be unwilling to make necessary cuts in non-educational programs.

To put the furloughs in perspective, a ten-day furlough equates to a 5% pay cut on annual salary.

Compensation

The administration wants faculty to have no raises for the three-year term of this agreement. Measured against inflation, that alone will be a de facto 6% pay cut.

Means for Allocating Merit Pay Increases

In spite of the fact that the administration/Board is proposing no raises, it is insisting on new language that would discard the process adopted by the parties long ago for allocating merit increases, a process that ties the increases to specific measures of performance. The administration wants to return to the practice of allowing administrators to award such increases arbitrarily, which was the practice before we unionized.

Health Benefits

The administration wants faculty to accept health care plans that would amount to a 4% pay cut to faculty. They also want faculty to give up the right to negotiate over health care altogether and give the administration the power to further worsen the health care plans anytime it wants, with only 45 days' notice.

The protest came after the union said the administration offered faculty a contract with no raises, reduced benefits and higher health care costs, which would effectively amount to a pay cut. The possibility of faculty furloughs has also been in discussion.

All of those threats to the faculty are still proposed by the administration.

The discussion of furloughs is actually a formal contract proposal that the administration first made on January 19, 2018, over one year after contract negotiations began, and over nine months after the date by which the administration and AAUP-WSU had agreed (in writing no less) to finalize all initial contract proposals.

--------------------------- President Schrader's News Release 2/9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Wright State Communications on  behalf of Cheryl B. Schrader, Ph.D., President, Wright State University
Subject: [OFFICIAL-L] From the President's Desk

I'm writing to provide an update on the negotiation process between Wright State University and faculty members represented by AAUP-WSU. Wright State University representatives, under the auspices of the Board of Trustees, are engaged in negotiations with faculty union leadership. The parties have reached tentative agreements on many of the articles for the next contract, though several articles remain unresolved and are under discussion.

Last week, the parties were set to begin a phase of negotiations known as fact finding. In that phase, an independent arbitrator, known as a fact finder, listens to positions from both the university and the faculty union on issues where agreement has not yet been reached and ultimately produces a recommendation for how the outstanding contract issues should be resolved.

In light of the progress already made in previous mediation meetings, the fact finder recommended that both parties go back to mediation to further address outstanding issues, with the assistance of the fact finder acting as a mediator, before fact finding would commence. Both the university and the faculty union agreed with this recommendation, and additional progress was made last week.

At this time, the university is not engaged in fact finding. The fact-finding procedure that had been scheduled for January 30 and February 1 has been rescheduled to April 3 and 4.

The fact finder also shared that he will not issue his report of recommendations until April 19, and based on that, the fact-finding process will not conclude until the end of April. In the event that both parties do not ratify the contract, they will return to final negotiations.

Classes, graduation, and other university activities are expected to proceed as normally scheduled for the entirety of the spring semester.

I know that for many of you, the results of this process have been on your minds. Know this: no matter what happens, our students' hard work and progress toward their academic goals will not be impeded nor will our students be prevented from receiving credit for the classes they are taking or from graduating on schedule. Maintaining the quality of our academic programs and preserving the opportunity for our students to achieve their goals, I believe, continues to be the highest priority of everyone at Wright State University.

At the same time, as a university, we are facing our challenges. We are meeting them head-on in a way that allows us to offer an excellent education for our students—thanks in large part to the efforts of our dedicated faculty and staff.

We are emerging stronger as a university by harnessing our collective pride in Wright State, and by transforming the lives of the students who trust us with their time and treasure. It is only together that we will reach our fullest potential.

-------------------- A Related to the DDN story which is based on the Schrader e-mail and thus contains errors of fact ------------------------
(see http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/contract-talks-thaw-between-wright-state-faculty-union-administration/EHGNEbHm4041eTdL98dXpO/)

Contract talks thaw between Wright State faculty union, administration
Max Filby Staff Writer 11:50 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 11, 2018

Wright State University's administration is back in contract negotiations with the school's faculty union after a tense few months.

Contract talks were set to move to fact-finding by the end of January but instead a fact-finder recommended that the university and the union continue to negotiate through a mediator, according to an email from WSU president Cheryl Schrader that was sent to campus today.

The fact-finding process has been rescheduled to April 3, according to the university.

RELATED: Wright State budget forum becomes negotiating table for faculty union

"The parties have reached tentative agreements on many of the articles for the next contract, though several articles remain unresolved and are under discussion," Schrader said in the campus email.

Tensions between administrators and members of the Wright State chapter of the Association of American University Professors reached a peak late last month. Faculty union members protested at a budget forum and threatened to call a strike if a deal was not reached.

The protest came after the union said the administration offered faculty a contract with no raises, reduced benefits and higher health care costs, which would effectively amount to a pay cut. The possibility of faculty furloughs has

also been in discussion.

RELATED: WSU projects $3.5-million enrollment drop but no state fiscal watch

In her email, Schrader thanked faculty and staff for helping the university to overcome some of its challenges.

Wright State's board of trustees slashed more than $30.8 million from the school's budget in June. Administrators have left several jobs vacant in an effort to reduce costs this year and boost Wright State's reserve fund by at least $6 million.

"We are emerging stronger as a university by harnessing our collective pride in Wright State, and by transforming the lives of the students who trust us with their time and treasure," Schrader wrote in the email.

 

 

From: owner-official_list@wright.edu On Behalf Of Matthew Boaz, Chief Diversity Officer, Office of Equity and Inclusion
Subject: [WSU-OFFICIAL-L] Letter to the Campus Community Regarding DACA

Dear Members of the Campus Community,

We are aware that a federal deadline for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is quickly approaching on March 5, 2018. We believe there are young scholars who are DACA students enrolled at Wright State University who are valued members of the Raider community. We remain committed to supporting their dreams of a Wright State University education as we respect the unique value of each of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities also continues to express strong support for congressional policy that would make legal provisions for DACA students. Wright State University is committed to complying with all federal and state laws, including upholding the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that makes it unlawful for university officials to disclose a student's educational records without their express permission, a lawful subpoena, or a court order. 

Wright State University as an educational institution will continue to act in the best interests of all of its students who have been granted admission to the university and it will not take any adverse actions against any of its students unless legally required to do so by a court order, subpoena, warrant, the need to enforce campus policies, or some other lawfully authorized directive. This is consistent with longstanding practices on the Wright State University campus. Faculty, staff, and students who encounter government agents presenting legal documentation who request any information about any of our students, faculty, or staff, should direct the individuals to the university's Office of General Counsel in 282 University Hall. 

We believe that beneficiaries of the DACA program are valuable contributing members of our campus community. We are grateful for the strength and support that each member of the Wright State University community continues to offer to each other in these challenging times.  

For more information, please contact the Office of Equity and Inclusion at (937) 775-3207.

For additional information related to DACA, please visit the Latino, Asian, and Native American Affairs website at http://www.wright.edu/lana

CAMPUS RESOURCES

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to provide support and referrals to individuals in our community who are affected in any way by current and impending immigration policies. Members of our community can continue to expect the following services:
   

• Continuing to allow Ohio residents who are Dreamers to pay in-state tuition;
• Offering limited legal services and referrals through our Student Legal Services Office;
• Supporting campus-based multicultural and identity student service centers such as the Bolinga, LANA, Women's and LGBTQA cultural centers. 

Below are campus resources that are available to support members of our community: 
    

• BOLINGA BLACK CULTURE RESOURCES CENTER, 140 Millett Hall, Phone: (937) 775-5645
• COUNSELING and WELLNESS SERVICES, 053K Student Union, Phone: (937) 775-3407
• OFFICE OF EQUITY and INCLUSION/TITLE IX COORDINATOR, 436 Millett Hall, Phone: (937) 775-3207
• UNIVERSITY CENTER for INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, E190 Student Union, Phone: (937) 775-5745
• LATINO, ASIAN, and NATIVE AMERICAN CENTER, 154 Millett Hall, Phone: (937) 775-3806
• STUDENT AFFAIRS, 352 University Hall, Phone: (937) 775-2808
• STUDENT LEGAL SERVICES, 015 Student Union, Phone: (937) 775-5857
• WOMEN'S CENTER, 148 Millett Hall, Phone: (937) 775-4524
• UNIVERSITY POLICE, 118 Campus Services Building, Phone: (937) 775-2056
        EMERGENCIES: Call 911
        NON-EMERGENCIES: Phone: (937) 775-2111

This mailing list is maintained by the WSU Office of Communications and is used ONLY for official university announcements.

 

 

From: Salem Avenue Peace Corridor(SAPC)
Subject: SAPC February/March 2018 Newsletter

Check out the Salem Avenue Peace Corridor's February/March Newsletter!

Don't miss out on the exciting, upcoming activities!
   

Click Here for the Newsletter!

 

End of MPEN e-Newsletter