Dear TT Faculty members,

The parties met for the most recent negotiation session on March 11th, 2026. KSUFA presented counter proposals on Article IX: Faculty Workload, Article X: Retrenchment, and Article XI: Promotion, Tenure, and Reappointment. KSUFA’s proposals have in common that they retain contractual protections for Faculty Senate’s historical role in shared governance to approve or disapprove changes to policy falling under Senate’s primary responsibility as specified in the Faculty Senate Charter (see especially Section B.2.c.i).  

As we communicated on February 27th, the administration has sought to remove all reference to any role played by Senate in the development and approval of Policies on Workload, Tenure, Reappointment, Promotion, or Faculty Professional Improvement Leave with the explicit intention of eliminating Senate’s veto power over proposed changes to these policies. KSUFA has no intention of bargaining away the contractual protections for Faculty Senate’s primary responsibility of approving or disapproving changes to these policies. 

This was the second session at which the administration team had no proposals to present. We are now over seven months into negotiations and the administration has yet to make initial proposals on the three main economic Articles: Article XII: Salary, Article XIII: Medical Benefits, and Article XIV: Other Benefits. There are also three Articles opened for negotiations solely by the administration on which the administration has yet to make an initial proposal (Article XV: Faculty Fitness for Duty, Article XX: Intellectual Property, and Article XXI: Distance Education).  

As of now, all but one of the Articles opened for negotiations by either party are on the University’s side of the table. The sole Article on KSUFA’s side of the table is Article XIX: Faculty Professional Development. When the administration made its initial counterproposal on Article XIX on February 25, it linked that Article to the three main economic Articles. As a result, KSUFA will not be able to make a counter proposal on Article XIX until we are able to review the administration’s initial proposals on those three main economic Articles.

The administration has assured us that they will have something to propose when we meet at our next scheduled session on March 25th. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to give us any idea what Articles they would have for us at that time or when we might expect proposals on the three main economic Articles. Academic year 25/26 is now more than two thirds over and TT faculty are the only University employees who have yet to receive a cost of living increase for this academic year. Needless to say, this does not send the message that the administration values the tenured and tenure-track faculty. Today, we let the administration’s team know that we have heard that message loud and clear.

Rest assured that we are exploring all available options to encourage the university to take this round of negotiations more seriously and to safeguard the rights we have long cherished as faculty since the founding of our union.

KSUFA has created a section of our website (https://ksufa.org/index.php/tenure-track-unit/negotiations-2025) dedicated to the TT negotiations. This section contains links to all of the negotiation updates we have sent to our members and links to all proposals on all articles made by either party. From our homepage (https://ksufa.org), you can find the link to the negotiation update both under the TT-Unit drop down menu at the top of the page or just below the Surviving SB 1 section of the homepage.

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