Alberta University of the Arts Faculty Association

Dear Members,

 

Welcome back! I hope you all had a fantastic summer and I look forward to reconnecting with you. Your Faculty Association has a number of initiatives on the go including preparing for negotiations and updating our Constitution and Bylaws. We will be providing regular communications on each of these soon, including a track-changes version of the bylaws for you to review and provide feedback on. Martina Lantin (Negotiations Chair) will send bargaining updates. Suffice it to say here that the NAC Committee has hit the ground running following the vacation leave. We will be hosting our fall General Meeting sometime in the first two weeks of October. I encourage you to join us as we will need 50% of our membership to vote on the bylaws!

 

As always, I also want to remind you to check in with us if there are employment issues that you'd like a second opinion on. If you are called to a meeting with your employer for any reason (or you're not given a reason), know that you can ask a member of the Faculty Association Executive to be present as a representative, as a support person, and/or as a witness.

 

I want to thank those of you who responded to our call for committee members. Monique Auffrey has volunteered to fill the position of representative to the Presidential Transition Advisory Working Group and Jamie Kroeger will be our second representative on the AUArts Joint Worksite Health and Safety Committee! (Incidentally, the first is Monique). Both bring a wealth of experience to these positions.

 

We have also received several expressions of interest in the the Faculty Professional Affairs Committee (FPAC - members as well as alternates), but need a couple more at the time of writing. According to the Collective Agreement (Article 16), members are elected to these positions, so we will be calling a quick online meeting in the near future with only this as an action item.

 

Finally, if you are only receiving communications from auafa.president@telus.net to your AUArts address, we encourage you to send us a personal address where we can reach you in the unlikely but possible event of a strike or lockout. As an employee at NAIT said last spring, there is leverage in being prepared for a strike, which could forestall the conditions that would lead to such an outcome.

 

Thanks, and all the best for your first week of classes!

​

Paul