Members of the administration and faculty union recently have come to a series of agreements related to Spring 2021. Read the MOU for union Unit 1 here and Unit 2 here.
The following is the complete recent joint statement, released Jan. 14.
“Over the past year, amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, we, and our students, have worked diligently to meet the challenges of this unprecedented context. Faculty have revised curriculum, learned new technical skills for online teaching, problem-solved approaches to on-going research, and oftentimes increased their service responsibilities in order to support students and sustain departmental or other operations.
As we know, these challenges to our work will continue through the spring 2021 semester. While these trials affect most aspects of our work, if not all, the uncertainty of the moment is perhaps felt the greatest in preparation for annual or milestone reviews, including mid-probation, tenure and promotion, and promotion.
United Academics of UNM (UA-NM) and UNM Administration want to remind faculty that departments should decide, consistently for all department faculty, whether to include peer evaluations of teaching as part of a faculty member’s annual review (see section B4.2.3 of the Faculty Handbook). Also, while peer evaluations are to be included in dossiers for mid-probationary and tenure and promotion reviews, UA- UNM and the Administration agree that those required reviews may come from courses taught prior to the disruptions caused by COVID-19. Furthermore, as per the previous semester, students’ evaluations of faculty from spring 2021 will not be used as a required evaluative tool or a required component of pending or future dossiers for annual reviews, mid-probation, tenure and promotion, or promotion.
UA-UNM and UNM Administration also recommend that bargaining unit members address the impact of the pandemic on their work by integrating information in their research/creative works, teaching, and service statements that are prepared for annual and milestone reviews. Of course, faculty are welcome to describe the ways they have worked to meet the challenges of the pandemic. However, in addition, for each realm of responsibility that has been affected, faculty are strongly encouraged to summarize the changes that have taken place in one’s practice, particularly as it has affected productivity (e.g., canceled or delayed events, activities; reduced access to facilities, personnel, research sites, research participants; reduced service responsibilities, etc.).
Those reviewing faculty performance from 2020 and 2021 shall take account of the disruptive, ongoing negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty working conditions and student learning conditions when making evaluative decisions about faculty.
For faculty looking for support with their teaching, please refer to UNM’s Center for Teaching and Learning website (
https://ctl.unm.edu) for the following faculty services:· Center for Teaching Excellence (
https://cte.unm.edu)· Center for Digital Learning (
https://cdl.unm.edu)· Writing Across the Curriculum Program (
https://unmwac.unm.edu)
Also, see CTE’s new page, A Guide for Observing Teaching (
https://cte.unm.edu/resources/docs-videos- links/observe-teaching.php), for formative, supportive strategies on peer observation for face-to-face,hybrid, and online courses.
We are grateful to all of you, our UNM colleagues, as we continue together to rise to the occasion of working during a global pandemic. Thank you for your continued commitment to delivering substantive,thoughtfully-prepared courses and contributing valuable scholarship that are worthy of UNM’s educational and research mission.”
