Dear TT Faculty members,

The parties met for a negotiation session on September 11, 2026. Although the administration’s team put several proposals on the table at this session, their proposals did not include counters to KSUFA’s proposals of August 12, 2026 for Article XII: Salary and Article XIII: Medical Benefits. KSUFA was surprised that the administration was not prepared to move away from their disappointing initial proposals of June 17, 2026 at this session, given that only one bargaining session (scheduled for Friday, September 25 from 3:00-5:00pm) remains before the September 30 deadline KSUFA has given the administration to either reach tentative agreement (TA) on a complete contract or have KSUFA declare impasse.

With respect to the proposals that the administration had prepared for the September 11 session, KSUFA was disappointed (but not surprised) to see that the administration doubled down on modifications to language incorporating various University policies that would radically undermine the significant role that Faculty Senate’s has historically played in shared governance. To give you some idea of the magnitude of what is at stake here, consider the current language incorporating the University’s policy on Workload into Section 2.A of Article IX of the CBA (which has remained relatively unchanged since the policy was first incorporated into the 1978 CBA). Were the University to succeed in obtaining its desired modifications to the existing language of that section, the administration would be free to make unilateral modifications to the Workload policy that entirely bypassed or otherwise ignored the will of the Faculty Senate. For example, the administration could unilaterally increase the credit hours associated with full-time load and/or add language to the policy that would render handbook provisions regarding workload equivalency for non-teaching duties merely recommendatory to the academic unit administrator or campus dean. These are not purely hypothetical examples. The administration briefly proposed making precisely these changes last Fall when the policy was being modified to accord with requirements in SB1. The administration only backed down when it became clear that Faculty Senate would not approve such changes and KSUFA threatened to file a grievance citing a violation of Article IX, Section 2.A if the administration took a version of the policy that had not been approved by Senate forward to the Board of Trustees for approval.  

As noted previously, the bargaining session scheduled for September 25 is the only bargaining session scheduled between now and the September 30 deadline KSUFA has given the administration to either reach TA on a complete contract or have KSUFA declare impasse. Despite the fact that this was a date that the administration had specifically provided to KSUFA as a date on which it would be available to negotiate, the administration subsequently informed KSUFA that it would not be able to field a quorum of their team as defined by the agreed upon ground rules for the September 25 session. The administration has requested and KSUFA has reluctantly granted the administration an exception to the quorum requirement contained in the ground rules for the September 25 session. Needless to say, this is just the latest example of how low negotiations with KSUFA’s TT bargaining unit are on the administration’s list of priorities. 

While it remains logically possible that the administration will make reasonable proposals for salary and medical benefits and retract the union and Faculty Senate busting provisions it has proposed over several Articles at this final session before KSUFA declares impasse, KSUFA does not predict that the administration will do so.

If we are forced to declare impasse at the end of September, KSUFA will begin circulating a petition calling on Faculty Senate to conduct a vote by all full-time faculty of No Confidence in the President and his cabinet. The circulation of such a petition at a time deemed appropriate by our bargaining team was authorized by the Executive Committee and Council of the TT-unit on August 21st. Although the FTNTT-unit is only at the beginning stages of their negotiations, the Executive Committee and Council of the FTNTT-unit endorsed the circulation of the petition at their meetings on August 28th.

Although the MOU extending the CBA expired on December 31, 2025, the provisions of the CBA will remain in full force and effect until a successor contract is ratified.

If you have any questions or concerns about negotiations, please don’t hesitate to contact me (dsmith@ksufa.org).

Sincerely,

Deborah Smith

President, KSUFA

Chief Negotiator, TT-Unit