Message from the Association President

Dear Colleagues,

I hope that all is well with all of you. I am writing to clarify a few points regarding the LOU that I sent out to you all last Friday as well as to speak to a few other COVID-19 related issues.

LOU Clarification

I received some questions about the section of the LOU regarding the ability of pre-tenure, pre-continuing appointment and pre-reappointment faculty to choose to defer going up for reappointment, tenure or​ continuing appointment for a year, due to COVID-19 disruptions. Most of the questions were regarding reappointment. I just want to be clear that if you choose to wait an additional year to go up for reappointment, everything moves forward by a year. So, you would not be going up for tenure until the seventh year since you were appointed, as opposed to the sixth year, as would have happened if you had not chosen to defer your reappointment by a year. Of course, you can choose to go up for tenure early, but if you don’t, and you have deferred reap​pointment by a year, then you would be considered for tenure in your seventh year.

If you face exceptional research and other challenges due to COVID-19, you can also apply for an additional year (beyond the one year that is automatically granted) before coming up for reappointment or tenure.  However, in the case of a request for a second year’s deferral, you would need to provide a rationale to your Chair, and such requests would need to be approved by the Provost.

I received a number of questions regarding the LOU terms about study leave. As noted, if your Chair agrees to your request to defer the study leave that you are currently on, then you will owe courses to your department. For example, if you normally teach two courses per term, and you end a current six month study leave at the end of February 2020, then you will owe two courses to be taught sometime within the next three years, at a time negotiated between yourself and your Chair. You will then not be expected to teach during the term when you take your four month deferred study leave.

You can choose to take the four month study leave on its own, or you can choose to add it onto your next six month study leave, for a total of 10 months leave, subject to approval by your Chair.

Credit towards the next study leave will use the actual dates from when you ended your current study leave. So, if you choose to defer a current leave, so that the leave ends on February 29, 2020, you will start to accrue service towards a future leave on March 1, 2020, and you will continue to accrue service credits right up until the day before you start the replacement leave. Service accrual stops while you are on the replacement leave, and then starts up again when that ends.

I’d like to remind you that if you wish to request to defer a leave that you are currently on, you must make this request to your Chair (or Dean in non-departmentalized faculties) by Monday, April 20th.

If you wish to defer a leave that starts on May 1st, July 1st or September 1st, you have until April 30th to make this request to your Chair.

Administrative Leave

The LOU only references study leave, not administrative leave for Chairs and Directors. Those wishing to defer an administrative leave should request to do so to their current Chair or Director. If approved by your Chair and Dean, it then needs to be approved by waiver between Faculty Relations and the Association, under the same rules that apply to study leave under the LOU.

Other COVID-19 Related Issues

I know that many of you are wondering how courses will be delivered this fall. It is my understanding that the University hopes to make a decision about this issue by early June.

I hope that this helps to clarify some issues. If you have any further questions on anything related to the LOU or other COVID-19 related issues, please don’t hesitate to contact me or our membership services officers:

Reuben Kellen – [email protected]

Ben Johnson – [email protected]

Stay safe and healthy, and for those not teaching this summer, the end (of marking) is in sight!

All the very best,

Lynne