Dear TT Faculty members,

The parties met for the most recent negotiation session on March 25th, 2026. Tentative agreement was reached on the Preamble and progress was made on Article V: Nondiscrimination and Article VI: Governance. But despite this modest progress, KSUFA remains deeply frustrated by the continued slow pace of negotiations.

We are now over seven months and twelve bargaining sessions 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).  

At the March 25th session, KSUFA’s team communicated our frustration to the administration by reading a statement into the record. We began the statement by noting all of the ways in which KSUFA has cooperated with the administration for the good of the University since the COVID shutdown in 2020. We immediately added that we have now come to understand that the collaboration only goes in one direction. We assist the administration and in exchange, they show us utter disregard and disrespect.  

We made clear that they disregard and disrespect us by doing absolutely nothing to prepare for these negotiations and by developing a FY 26 budget that apparently did not factor in cost of living increases for the TT faculty for this academic year (AY 25/26). As a result, TT faculty are the only University employees who have not received a cost of living raise this year. We noted that how an organization chooses to spend its money, particularly in challenging times, reflects its values and that Kent State’s budget reflects that the University does not value its Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty.

We noted that we are often asked by faculty what is going on with these negotiations and why the administration is dragging its heels. In particular, faculty ask us whether we think the administration is acting from a place of malice, trying to break the faculty union. We informed the administration that KSUFA has long adhered to Hanlon’s Razor: don’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. So, we generally respond to the question by saying that we believe the problem is that the administration is utterly unprepared for, and quite frankly doesn’t know what they are doing in these negotiations.

We informed the administration that, whether the explanation is malicious intent or incompetence, our team has essentially lost all faith and trust in this administration and its ability to negotiate with KSUFA in good faith. We concluded by saying that we “don’t know how you will earn our trust back. There is nothing that you can say that will make a difference; words are not enough. We need to see action, and we need to see action very soon at this very table. In the meantime, we will have to make use of all of the collective actions that remain options for us under the law.” To that end, we are planning informational picketing at all of KSU’s campuses. We will communicate specific days and times, as well as ground rules for participating in informational picketing, as those plans are finalized.

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