On Wednesday the union representing more than 5,000 faculty members at the 14 state universities, which are a part of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), went to the picket lines.
The faculty union, Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF) announced its strike at 5:02 a.m.on Facebook. It is the first strike in the nearly 34-year history of APSCUF.
Negotiations between the faculty union and the State System came to an abrupt halt at around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. State System negotiators handed APSCUF its “last best offer” and indicated it was done negotiating.
“We’d like to reassure our students that we did everything we possibly could to avoid a strike,” APSCUF Vice President Jamie Martin said in a previously published reports.
APSCUF negotiators remained at the table through the night. President Dr. Kenneth M. Mash added: “We waited until 5 a.m. [Wednesday]. We are headed to the picket lines, but even on the picket lines, our phones will be on.”
Thursday in the midst of the second day of the faculty strike, a Lock Haven University student, Danielle Boyles expressed her frustrations and concerns as a non-traditional, commuter student during a phone interview with GANT News.
Boyles is a health science major with a focus in community health, and she is to graduate in May. Her courses require her to commute to Lock Haven’s Main Campus and she must leave home in Clearfield at 6:30 a.m.
During the faculty strike, students are to attend classes that are scheduled to meet. If no faculty member is present, a University administrator will make note of that and release the students.
The administration will neither take student attendance nor impose a penalty for absence, but their faculty member has a legal right to report to work and may elect to do so, according to the University Web site.
The universities are to provide lists about which faculty members aren’t meeting. Students are to check “MyHaven” at 8 a.m. daily and are advised not to assume because their classes are cancelled one day, they will be for the duration of the strike.
“Thursday, the strike list of faculty didn’t get updated until 9:15 a.m.,” said Boyles. “If there’s no faculty member, students who show for class are read a memo and sent home … They have no alternative for us.”
Boyles’ greatest fear, however, is how this will affect her if the strike lasts more than a few weeks. She’s currently enrolled in classes for her health science major that are only offered in the fall and supposed to complete her field experience in the spring.
Her current fall courses are prerequisites for her field experience next semester, which her faculty member has to set up for her. “I could possibly have to start all over next fall and look at $10,000 in extra debt if I would have to make up a semester worth of courses.
“I’m sure out of the 105,000 students in the state system that there are more stories just like mine.” She added students want taught from “great professors,” which is why she went to a “brick and mortar” university, such as Lock Haven.
Thursday Boyles was among the handful of students picketing for negotiations at the Lock Haven Clearfield Campus. Boyles’ sign prompted for people to e-mail Gov. Tom Wolf to make the State System return to negotiations with the union.
“We don’t have time for Chancellor Frank Brogan to play cat-and-mouse games with the faculty union,” she said. “… It’s not a coal factory stopping its mining operations. It’s stopping universities from educating students for our future.”
A representative from Lock Haven Clearfield directed media inquiries to the Main Campus; a spokesperson at Main Campus directed inquiries on the faculty strike to PASSHE. A PASSHE spokesperson could not be reached, however.
APSCUF has said the faculty strike will continue on until a new contract has been reached. The faculty contract expired June 30, 2015, and negotiations have been ongoing since late 2014, according to previously published press releases.
APSCUF represents about 5,500 faculty and coaches at the State System universities: Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.
“No sessions scheduled yet. APSCUF is — and has been — ready to meet when the State System returns to the table,” stated Kathryn Morton, associate director of communications, APSCUF, in an e-mail to GANT News on Thursday night.