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We’re Here to Help!
United Academics is here to help faculty when issues, problems, or questions arise. Respresenatives, stewards, and union leaders talk with faculty every day regarding their rights and responsibilities in the workplace, how various policies and processes work at UO, and how we can collectively improve our university. We’re happy to talk with you over email, phone, video chat, or in person in your office or at the union hall. You can also find recent member updates on the Duck and Cover, UA’s web-based newsletter.
Below we’ve put together some resources: affiliate benefits, useful UO web pages and the like; but if you can’t find something shoot us an email or give us a call. We’re here to help!
Information for Career Researchers
Information for Career Instructors
Information for Librarians
Information for Postdoctoral Scholars
Information for Pro Tempore Faculty
Information for Tenure-Track Faculty
Affiliate Benefits
As they say, membership has its benefits …
AFT Benefits
Many of the AFT’s benefit offerings are through our affiliation with Union Plus, the AFL-CIO benefits program. New Union Plus programs have been added to the AFT + roster of benefits to bring you savings on an even wider array of products and services.
With the purchasing power of 1.5 million members, together we are able to access a wide array of quality programs and services.
If you need help accessing your membership number or did not receive a membership card, contact the office at 541-636-4714 or email Kristy.
Occupational Liability Plan
AAUP Benefits
You join the AAUP to protect academic freedom, shared governance, and the faculty voice. But membership brings more tangible benefits, too:
Your AAUP membership gives you exclusive access to the expertise of AAUP staff, members, and leaders. Our lineup of guidebooks, toolkits, and webinars put the resources to defend academic freedom, ensure economic security, and advance faculty governance for all faculty at your fingertips.
Your membership includes a subscription to Academe, the bimonthly magazine of the AAUP, which includes the Association’s Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession (also known as the “salary survey”).
Call the Chronicle’s AAUP line at 1-800-728-2803 for the special AAUP discount of 20% off print and digital subscriptions.
Resources for Career Research Faculty
Career researchers keep our labs going strong! Let’s keep you going strong too.
Meet your VP
Your VP for NTT Research Affairs is our specialist on the issues that affect research faculty. Typically research faculty positions are Research Assistants, Research Associates, Post Docs, and Research Professors, among others. They are often funding contingent positions. You can contact your VP or our union office for advice, information, and assistance with navigating any issues that arise with your research faculty position.
Christina Karns
Vice President for Non-Tenure-Track Research Faculty Affairs
Christina Karns is an Assistant Research Professor in Psychology with the Center for Brain Injury Research and Training.
She uses human neuroimaging, behavior, and interventions in kids and adults (with and without disability) to clarify how attention and self-regulation support development. What brain systems support positive social interactions, how do they affect stress systems in the body, and to what degree are these interactions changeable, demonstrating neuroplasticity?
Good science can be a powerful force toward social justice, an ethos she brings to her teaching and her research.
Email Christina
Welcome New Researchers!
Research Assistants and Research Associates are critical to the university’s research mission. Research assistants and associates come to the UO with varying skill sets and expertise, and develop additional important skills over time. Research assistant positions are diverse ranging from recent graduates gaining research experience before graduate school to directors of centers who are already experts in their field. Research Associate positions may include directors of externally funded projects or experts in their research area. As such, clear job descriptions, development plans, and performance evaluations are important for the careers of research assistants and associates.
As a union we want to ensure that you are treated fairly and that title, pay, and rank is appropriate for your position. We also want to make sure positions are appropriately categorized, for example as pro tem or career appointments.
Research Professors are critical to the university’s research mission. Research professors typically develop and direct externally funded projects. Funding may come from various sources.
As a union we want to ensure that all faculty are treated fairly and that pay and rank is appropriate for your level. We also want to make sure positions are appropriately categorized and that promotion and review processes are clear.
Resources for Career Instructional Faculty
Career instructional faculty are the educational backbone of the university. Here are some resources to help shoulder that burden!
Meet your VP
Eleanor Wakefield
Vice President for Non-Tenure Track Instructional Faculty Affairs
Eleanor Wakefield is an instructor in the English department and composition program. She began teaching at the UO in 2010 as a graduate student in English, continuing as a pro tem and now career instructor.
During her time as a graduate student and employee, she acted as a steward and VP of Grievances for the GTFF. She has also served a steward from English for UA and chair of the Representative Assembly.
Her scholarly work is on poetry and poetics, especially 19th and 20th century American formal verse.
Email Eleanor
Welcome New Instructors!
Career instructional faculty are an integral part of the University of Oregon. They fulfill an enormous amount of this public institution’s central teaching mission. They are on the leading edge when it comes to pedagogy and professional development of teaching. They work behind the scenes to keep the institution running by mentoring students and colleagues alike, helping to advise students either formally or informally, and serving in an endless variety of campus committees.
Since its inception in 2012 United Academics has accomplished an amazing amount on behalf of Career instructors and lecturers in terms of transparent promotion procedures, regular pay raises in equivalent proportions to tenure-track faculty, a larger role in shared governance at the unit level, and a noticeably positive cultural shift in how Career faculty are perceived and respected by colleagues across campus.
There is much work yet to be done. Our union strives to expand and enhance the support provided by the institution so that our instructors and lecturers can become ever more effective in their teaching while having scope for growth in their careers.
Resources for Tenure-Track Faculty
Tenure is a big challenge! Here’s what you need to know.
Meet your VP
David Luebke
Vice President for Tenure-Track Faculty Affairs
David M. Luebke is a professor in the Department of History whose research and writing focuses on the religions and political cultures of ordinary people in the German-speaking lands of central Europe.
He has been a member of the UO faculty since 1997 and has supported the formation of a faculty union since beginning, way back in 2007.
David is especially interested in ensuring that procedures for the review and promotion of faculty members are conducted fairly, according to clear and transparent criteria, and with proper respect for the value that departments place on scholarship, teaching, and service.
Email David
Welcome New Tenure-Track Faculty!
Tenure-track faculty embody the university’s dedication to the generation of knowledge, its dissemination, preservation, and application. Together, they form both the largest category in our bargaining unit and the largest constituency among active members of United Academics. Our union’s mission is to protect and preserve academic freedom, to defend the integrity of peer review for tenure and promotion, and to uphold the university’s standing in American higher education.
United Academics strives to ensure that the expectations for tenure are made clear to newly hired faculty at the time of appointment and that midterm reviews are conducted fairly and objectively. To secure fairness and equity in the process of tenure and promotion, we help departments, programs, and colleges develop clear criteria for evaluation. We strive to correct disparities of pay and compensation on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, and national origin. In mid-term reviews, tenure, and promotion, we work to ensure that full consideration is given to all faculty for the effects of ill health and the burdens of family.
Links
UO Vice President for Research & Innovation
UO Sponsored Project Services (VPRI)
UO Teaching Engagement Program
UO Faculty Writing Circles (DEI)
Oregon Public Employees Retirement System
Public Employees Benefit Board
University of Oregon Postdoc Association (UOPA)
Student Disclosures of Sex and Gender-Based Harassment and Violence
Resources for Librarians
Librarians job is year-round. We’re here year-round too.
Meet your VP
Eleanor Wakefield
Vice President for Non-Tenure Track Instructional Faculty Affairs
Eleanor Wakefield is an instructor in the English department and composition program. She began teaching at the UO in 2010 as a graduate student in English, continuing as a pro tem and now career instructor.
During her time as a graduate student and employee, she acted as a steward and VP of Grievances for the GTFF. She has also served a steward from English for UA and chair of the Representative Assembly.
Her scholarly work is on poetry and poetics, especially 19th and 20th century American formal verse.
Email Eleanor
Welcome New Librarians!
Librarians directly support the research and teaching missions of the University of Oregon. They have long been at the forefront of the transition in higher education from traditional media to new media. They deliver subject-specific expertise. They help connect researchers and their questions to resources and answers. They work with instructors to navigate the boundless possibilities and potential pitfalls of digital content. They support the software and platforms that underpin today’s teaching and learning. They assist students class-by-class and individually.
Throughout the country university libraries have been asked to do more with ever shrinking resources. United Academics strives to defend this crucial work and those engaged in it—in all its myriad facets—here at the University of Oregon.
Resources for Postdoctoral Scholars
The PhD is just the beginning, find advice for freshly minted academics here.
Meet your VP
Your VP for NTT Research Affairs is our specialist on the issues that affect research faculty. Typically research faculty positions are Research Assistants, Research Associates, Post Docs, and Research Professors, among others. They are often funding contingent positions. You can contact your VP or our union office for advice, information, and assistance with navigating any issues that arise with your research faculty position.
Christina Karns
Vice President for Non-Tenure-Track Research Faculty Affairs
Christina Karns is an Assistant Research Professor in Psychology with the Center for Brain Injury Research and Training.
She uses human neuroimaging, behavior, and interventions in kids and adults (with and without disability) to clarify how attention and self-regulation support development. What brain systems support positive social interactions, how do they affect stress systems in the body, and to what degree are these interactions changeable, demonstrating neuroplasticity?
Good science can be a powerful force toward social justice, an ethos she brings to her teaching and her research.
Email Christina
Welcome New Postdocs!
Postdoctoral researchers are short-term mentored positions with a faculty advisor, that do not exceed 5 years. Postdoctoral research positions may be funded through external grants through the UO, or funding may be from foundations or fellowship grants to the individual. This creates complexity for postdocs in terms of employee status and benefits as funding may shift over time.
We work with postdocs and the administration to ensure that postdocs are treated fairly, that processes are transparent, and that mentorship plans are appropriate to ensure postdocs transition successfully to the next stage of their careers.
Links
UO Vice President for Research & Innovation
UO Sponsored Project Services (VPRI)
UO Teaching Engagement Program
UO Faculty Writing Circles (DEI)
Oregon Public Employees Retirement System
Public Employees Benefit Board
University of Oregon Postdoc Association (UOPA)
Student Disclosures of Sex and Gender-Based Harassment and Violence
Resources for Pro Tempore Faculty
Career instructional faculty are the educational backbone of the university. Here are some resources to help shoulder that burden!
Meet your VP
Eleanor Wakefield
Vice President for Non-Tenure Track Instructional Faculty Affairs
Eleanor Wakefield is an instructor in the English department and composition program. She began teaching at the UO in 2010 as a graduate student in English, continuing as a pro tem and now career instructor.
During her time as a graduate student and employee, she acted as a steward and VP of Grievances for the GTFF. She has also served a steward from English for UA and chair of the Representative Assembly.
Her scholarly work is on poetry and poetics, especially 19th and 20th century American formal verse.
Email Eleanor
Welcome New Pro Tems!
Pro tem faculty have a lot to contribute to campus, even if they are here only for a time: pro tempore. They are professionals bringing real-world experiences and expertise. They are researchers working on specific projects. They are instructors helping to fulfill a programmatic need. They are librarians tackling challenging projects.
Those serving in pro tem positions come from a variety of backgrounds and have different goals. For some their primary career is ongoing and external to campus. For others the University of Oregon is a waystation to new opportunities elsewhere in academia or industry. Some end up in Career or tenure-track positions. Regardless of journey or trajectory, those working as pro tem faculty impact students and colleagues.
During their stay with us—however long or short that might be—United Academics represents pro tem faculty in every respect. Reach out with any questions or concerns!