{"id":2767,"date":"2015-01-07T01:17:26","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T06:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/?p=2767"},"modified":"2015-01-07T12:15:35","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T17:15:35","slug":"synopsis-of-a-faculty-unions-15-month-labor-war-in-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/2015\/01\/07\/synopsis-of-a-faculty-unions-15-month-labor-war-in-minnesota\/","title":{"rendered":"Synopsis of a faculty union’s 16-month labor war in Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"On<\/a><\/p>\n

MPR News<\/a>\u00a0Intelligence on higher education<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

MnSCU overhaul falters<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alex Friedrich<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>

The signs were long in coming.<\/p>\n

After Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system Chancellor Steven Rosenstone\u00a0unveiled a proposal in 2013<\/a>\u00a0to revamp how the system would do business \u2013 a plan called Charting the Future \u2013 faculty representatives were uneasy.<\/p>\n

They said the proposed reforms\u00a0smelled of Soviet centralization<\/a>\u00a0and feared the plan would put too much power into the hands of the central office.<\/p>\n

In June of this year, the statewide faculty union\u00a0issued a list of complaints against Rosenstone<\/a>, who they said had driven faculty morale to a new low through mismanagement and a show of disrespect toward professors.<\/p>\n

\"\"We\u2019re not on board.\u00a0Jennifer Simonson \/ MPR News<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

In October, faculty began to bolt. Winona State University started a wave that led faculty at all seven state universities to hold votes of \u201cno confidence\u201d in Rosenstone\u2019s leadership.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The system\u2019s two statewide unions\u00a0pulled out of the planning process<\/a>. They said they didn\u2019t have enough say in decision-making, and\u00a0feared the plan would lead to \u201cthe McDonaldization of higher education.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

They expressed distrust in Rosenstone, citing\u00a0revelations<\/a>\u00a0that the chancellor had quietly signed a contract extension the previous fall \u2013 a move that was never formally disclosed to the board \u2013 and had\u00a0signed a $2 million contract with an overhaul consultant<\/a>\u00a0under the radar of faculty and students as well.<\/p>\n

They\u00a0rejected Rosenstone\u2019s public offer of state mediation in November<\/a>, saying it was a surprise announcment \u2013 and a political strong-arm tactic to get them to the table on his terms.<\/p>\n

Rosenstone has said the reform process will continue. The unions still aren\u2019t in mediation with him, but university faculty union President Jim Grabowska said faculty representatives have been in informal talks with several trustees about their concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MPR News\u00a0Intelligence on higher education   MnSCU overhaul falters Alex Friedrich\u00a0December 29, 2014 The signs were long in coming. After Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system Chancellor Steven Rosenstone\u00a0unveiled a proposal in 2013\u00a0to revamp how the system would do business \u2013 a plan called Charting the Future \u2013 faculty representatives were uneasy. They said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2767"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2774,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2767\/revisions\/2774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}