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Share Testimony for the 2023 Oregon Legislative Session

Dear PSUFA, 

Labor union coalitions are working with legislators NOW to make positive changes through the 2023 Oregon legislative session. These motions are made stronger with testimony from you, the workers. 

Now is your chance to submit testimony—your stories from working as contingent academic workers—to make change that matters. 

Below you’ll find:

  • Instructions on writing testimony

  • Current bills, testimony needed, and deadlines

Adjunct faculty bills are at the top. Please note: 

  1. The “Adjunct Pay Parity” bill is happening tomorrow, Thursday at 3pm. ***This is our priority for messaging. Please send in your written testimony as soon as possible.***

  2. Another priority bill is the Public University Governance Reforms (SB 273), which is happening a week from now—March 30 at 3pm. Please submit any testimony by 11am on Thursday, March 30.

How to Write Testimony

  • Write your own testimony, in your own words, and in your own voice.

  • The messaging and testimony template included below are examples only. Feel free to use as much or as little of them in your own testimony as you would like.

  • If you would like someone to review your testimony before you submit it, please send it to andreah [at] aft-oregon.org or taylor [at] mahoniapublicaffairs.com 

  • Remember that any testimony you submit—whether it is written and submitted online or verbal on the day of the hearing—will be publicly available in perpetuity on the Oregon Legislature’s website. This includes your name, what you write, and any personally identifiable information that you include in your testimony.

  • The maximum number of characters allowed in the text box is 4,000. The maximum PDF upload size is 15 MB.

  • Upload all completed testimonies to this Google Folder OR email to Andrea Haverkamp.

Testimony Messaging and Templates

Below are links to the bills in  Oregon Legislative Information System (OLIS), short summaries of the bills, important deadlines, and testimony templates to download or make a copy of in Google Docs. View or download all templates here.

Adjunct Faculty Issues

Adjunct Pay Parity (SB 416)

  • Link to Bill and Testimony Submission:  SB416 2023 Regular Session - Oregon Legislative Information System 

  • Summary: Requires public universities and community colleges to pay part-time faculty at the same rate, on a per-hour basis, as public university or community college pays full-time faculty to prepare for and teach courses.

  • Deadlines: Public Hearing THIS THURSDAY, March 23 at 3pm. Written and/or verbal testimony is needed as soon as possible! Let us know if you are available. Note: You can continue to submit testimony 48 hours after the bill (until Saturday), but it is more impactful beforehand.

  • Testimony Template

Adjunct Faculty Healthcare Vision, Dental, Funding Allocation (HB 2611)

  • Link to Bill and Testimony Submission:  HB2611 2023 Regular Session - Oregon Legislative Information System 

  • Summary: Requires that dental and vision are included in health benefits available to part-time faculty members. Requires public institutions of higher education to notify potentially eligible part-time faculty members of eligibility requirements and details of health care benefits available to part-time faculty no later than 30 days before application deadline. Reduces the amount of time part-time faculty must work to qualify for health care benefits from 50 percent of full-time equivalent employees to 30 percent of full-time equivalent employees. Requires institutions to include non instructional work when making eligibility determination.

  • Deadlines: Ongoing. We are collecting testimony in anticipation of forward movement.

  • Testimony Template

General Higher Education Issues

Public University Governance Reforms (SB 273)

  • Link to Bill and Testimony Submission:  SB273 2023 Regular Session - Oregon Legislative Information System 

  • Summary: The full text of the bill is still being workshopped and will be introduced before next Thursday. It is expected to include expanded representation for faculty, students, and staff with voting rights, and require two-way communication and availability of email addresses.

  • Deadlines: Public Hearing NEXT THURSDAY, March 30 at 3pm. Written and/or verbal testimony is needed as soon as possible! Please do not submit testimony yet - we’ll need a strong group to ensure consistent messaging. Let us know if you are available to participate!

  • Testimony Template

Campus Safety Survey and Survivor Services (HB 3456)

  • Link to Bill and Testimony Submission:  HB3456 2023 Regular Session - Oregon Legislative Information System 

  • Summary: Requires college campuses to provide certified survivor services including free medical, legal, and counseling services. Requires biannual campus climate survey data collected at each institution and aggregated by the State of Oregon. Ensures amnesty protection for reporting parties. 

  • Deadlines: Work Session scheduled today, we are collecting testimony in anticipation of forward movement.

  • Testimony Template - Use talking points from This Document

Graduate Employee Hours-worked Eligibility for SNAP Benefits (SB 609)

Classified Staff Issues

Equal Access to UI Benefits for K-12 Classified Staff (SB 489)

Classified Staff Recognition Week (HB 2708)

There are more Classified Staff bills in the hopper. Contact Andrea if you’d like to work on the full range of bills being considered.

“Fair Shot for All” Coalition / Common Good 

Public Banking Bill (HB 2763)

  • Link to Bill and Testimony Submission:  HB2763 2023 Regular Session - Oregon Legislative Information System 

  • Summary: Establishes State Public Bank Task Force. Directs task force to study and make recommendations regarding establishment of state public bank. Requires task force to submit report to committee of Legislative Assembly by January 31, 2024.

  • Deadlines: Already passed with amendments! We can collect testimony ahead of forward movement in the Senate.

  • Testimony Template 

Reproductive and Gender Healthcare Access Bill (HB 2002)

  • Link to Bill and Testimony Submission:  HB2002 2023 Regular Session - Oregon Legislative Information System 

  • Summary: This bill protects reproductive healthcare providers from criminal charges relating to other states, funds a pilot ‘mobile reproductive healthcare’ service for underserved regions, removes limitations within commercial insurance on gender affirming healthcare, increases reproductive healthcare access on community college and public university campuses. More info here. 

  • Deadlines: Passed.

  • Testimony Template - courtesy of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon

Stable Homes for Oregon Families (SB 611)

Student Borrower Protection Network PSLF Webinars

Last fall, the Department of Education announced an overhaul of the PSLF program designed to allow millions of public service workers who have been struggling under the weight of student loan debt a path to relief. In short, borrowers who were previously ineligible because they had the wrong loan, were making payments on the wrong payment plan, or were knocked off track due to processing errors can now receive credit toward forgiveness for those years worked in public service. The current waiver period ends on October 31, 2022.

The Student Borrower Protection Network is holding multiple free webinars to highlight updates to the PSLF program, guidance on how to navigate the new process, and an opportunity to ask questions about accessing debt relief. Here are the dates for webinars:  

  • August 22, 2022, 6 pm ET

  • September 8, 2022, 5 pm ET

  • September 22, 2022 12 pm ET

  • September 27, 2022, 6 pm ET

  • October 4, 2022, 6 pm ET

  • October 6, 2022, 12 pm ET

  • October 17, 2022, 12 pm ET

  • October 25, 2022, 6 pm ET

Register here!

For a step-by-step guide on how to apply for the PSLF waiver, visit https://forgivemystudentdebt.org.

And don’t forget! AFT is also offering weekly debt clinics as well. Check them out here.

Report from the 2021 Higher Ed Labor Summit

Last week, representatives from PSUFA attended the 2021 virtual Higher Ed Labor Summit. We joined 300+ higher education organizers from over 75 unions and organizations that represented over 300,000 academic workers across the United States.

Scroll down to read the final Vision Platform the organizers put together that envisions a bold, unified vision for higher education that prioritizes people and the common good over profit and prestige! You can also read it as a PDF here.

At the end of the summit, organizers held a briefing for legislators and the media, which you can watch below.

Higher Ed Labor Summit: Building a Movement to Transform U.S. Higher Education Vision Platform 

We envision a future in which higher education is treated and funded as a social good and universal right. We envision a U.S. higher education system that works for and is led by workers, students, and the communities it serves. We envision a system that secures our nation’s democratic future and serves as a vehicle for addressing inequities. 

We envision public and nonprofit private institutions of higher education that prioritize people and the common good over profit and prestige. We envision institutions that redress systemic oppression and pursue equity along lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, indigeneity, age, (dis)ability, and immigration status for students and higher ed workers across all job categories. We envision institutions that honor the right of all workers to organize a union and collectively bargain, and commit to the fair working conditions crucial to achieving our educational mission. 

We envision a higher education labor movement that connects workers across job categories, ranks, systems, states, and sectors. We envision a movement that forms coalitions of and builds democratic power for all workers. 

The Challenges We Face 

For decades, our state systems and their institutions, working conditions, and learning environments have been compromised by public disinvestment, financialization, corporatization, and a transition to debt financing. Higher education has been underfunded, and management has prioritized generating revenue and allocating funds to divisions that yield the highest return on investment and to upper-administrator compensation. 

Workers and students have borne the burden of these structural shifts. All categories of faculty, professional and service staff, and student jobs have been cut, narrowed, outsourced, and remade into contingent, at-will positions. At the same time, upper-administrator positions have grown. The majority of faculty (at least 70%) are in adjunct or contingent appointments. This precarity presents a threat to job stability, educational engagement with students, long-term student outcomes, and academic freedom. Expanding faculty and staff contingency disproportionately impacts women and LGBTQIA+ workers, and workers of color. Tenure-track and full-time employment have declined while workers and students pay the price with lower wages, little to no benefits like health insurance and retirement, and rising tuition and fees. This results in workers and students experiencing the same precarity, leading to increased attrition, faculty turnover, and withdrawals. Higher education institutions have increasingly turned to private lenders, forcing them to prioritize Wall Street and corporate-donor demands over public interests. Students have been transformed into debtors–carrying more than $1.7 trillion in debt today. 

Without renewed investments and changes in governance, these crises will worsen. 

The Opportunity to Transform Higher Education 

Even as we face generational challenges to the integrity and future of our not-for-profit education system in the United States, these colleges and universities function as educational, economic, social, and cultural anchors in communities. So we also see enormous opportunities to reinvest in and restructure the system—which employs more than 6 million people and educates many millions more—along more just and equal lines. To transform U.S. higher education as we envision will take a movement of workers, students, and communities united across union and geographic lines. 

Therefore, as local and statewide higher education unions and ally organizations, we make the following commitments to organize for and win a just, equitable system that serves the core public educational mission for which we all strive. 

Commitment 1: Nationwide Action for Federal Government Intervention 

In order to address these national crises, we call for coordinated nationwide action to move the federal government to: 

1. Establish the right to a quality, debtless, universally accessible, and secure higher education for students, workers, and communities, with intentional mandates to increase access and retention for people historically or presently excluded on the basis of race, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, indigeneity, age, (dis)ability, and immigration status. 

2. Enact legislation and rules to regularize and stabilize higher education employment on a national scale, and to ensure fair terms and safe work conditions, living wages and steady careers for all faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate student workers. 

3. Enact legislation to guarantee the right for all higher education workers to organize a union and bargain collectively in every state. 

4. Invest in rebuilding higher education across the country and its territories while linking expanded federal funds to consistent and higher labor standards. This funding includes physical, research, healthcare, and human infrastructure that serves our public service mission, and formation of a public finance system to free higher education from depending on private banks for debt financing. 

Commitment 2:  Nationwide Action to Realign Our Campuses 

In order to address our campuses within these national crises, we call for coordinated nationwide action to move our upper administrators and boards to: 

1. Engage in collaborative shared governance in which all categories of faculty and staff, student groups, and unions participate at all levels and have decision-making power and key leadership roles, and surrounding communities have avenues to participate in balanced collaborations and partnerships. 

2. Align campus and state budgets with educational priorities, and focus on fulfilling the declared education al mission while meeting the direct needs of the faculty, staff, and students who are central to it. 

3. Reduce the average ratio of upper-administrator compensation to faculty and staff compensation to an equitable standard. 

4. Implement financial transparency by making available to unions and other university stakeholders all relevant financial documents used in the budgeting processes. 

5. Categorize student workers as campus employees for pay, healthcare benefits, and collective bargaining rights. 

6. Improve the immediate working conditions for all contingent faculty and staff via employment standards that include job security, pay equity, healthcare and retirement benefits, caps on course loads and section sizes, caps on case management and student services loads, safe and harassment-free work environments, collective bargaining rights, and shared governance. 

7. End precarious contingent employment and create justly compensated work for all campus workers (full time or part-time): 

a. Increase full-time staff density by redefining most current contingent and outsourced staff and service positions as benefitted full-time campus positions; prioritize moving current contingent workers at scale into those positions. 

b. Increase tenure density and establish a broad tenure standard for all faculty that recognizes the op tions of teaching tenure, service tenure, and research tenure for current instructors and faculty as well as future hires; prioritize moving current contingent instructors and faculty at scale into these positions; establish job security with stable employment, pay equity, pro-rated benefits, and research access for instructors and faculty who remain non-tenure track. 

8. Establish academic freedom for all workers and students as central to the educational mission, which has been undermined by the casualization of labor.

Commitment 3: Action Steps Toward Commitments 1 and 2 

We propose nationwide coordination and planning to: 

1. Organize to win the College for All Act, including provisions for a pipeline to tenure-track and full-time jobs for current contingent faculty and staff. 

2. Organize to win related legislation that increases federal and state funding for higher education, with the goal of eliminating the student cost of attending college while requiring institutions that receive these funds: 

a. Provide job security and promotion pipelines for non-instructional staff. 

b. Move rapidly and at scale to a supermajority tenure-track teaching and full-time instructional workforce, while guaranteeing job security and seniority for instructors who choose not to participate in tenure. 

c. Categorize undergraduate and graduate student workers as campus employees. 

d. Provide pay equity and regular raises for all campus workers. 

3. Organize to win federal legislation to attach labor provisions to existing mechanisms of federal funding (e.g. National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), Pell grants, etc.) to ensure that institutions honor workers’ right to organize a union and bargain collectively in good faith. 

4. Pursue federal rule-making with the Departments of Labor and Education regarding categorizations and labor standards for contingent and contract workers, employee status, and job definitions; tie these rules to accreditor recognition criteria and procedures. 

5. Organize to win the cancellation of student debt to repair the harm of higher education disinvestment, which has disproportionately impacted black, brown, indigenous, and working-class people. 

6. Develop and organize to win federal legislation, campus policies, and where possible state legislation and rules that acknowledge and dismantle the colonization and theft of Indigenous lands; create and fully fund indigenous-led programs to recruit, retain and support Indigenous students and faculty; establish institutional shared governance systems that formally incorporate into decision-making the indigenous peoples upon whose land these campuses sit and benefit from. 

7. Organize to win federal legislation, campus policies, and where possible state legislation and rules that address reparations for historical and ongoing systemic oppression and inequities, including fundamental changes to campus policing, as part of a commitment to building civil rights unionism and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. 

8. Organize to win federal legislation, campus policies, and where possible state legislation and rules that require our institutions to divest from fossil fuels and invest in green construction, renewable energy, and the end of single-use plastics. 

Commitment 4:  A Unified National Movement 

We commit to work and build solidarity together to fight in our communities and across the country and its territories as a true coordinated higher education labor movement to transform our systems and our lives.

If you’d like to get involved in organizing to build the movement, please fill out this form.

How Adjuncts Can Apply for Unemployment in Oregon

Sarah Chivers, a Portland State adjunct and former PSUFA executive council member, just put together this resource for adjuncts to apply for unemployment in Oregon. Check it out! And thanks for putting this together, Sarah!

Filing for Unemployment in Oregon

1. Have all of your employment records from the past 18 months ready. 

Include calendar with academic teaching schedule and fall/winter/summer breaks when students do not meet with you, employer(s) contact information, your personal info (SSN, address, phone, email), earnings information to answer all questions in the Online Claim System.

2. File an initial claim (or restart a claim if you’ve done this before) in order to do the next step—claim “weekly benefits.”

You must file your initial unemployment claim ASAP (immediately when you stop working for your college).

3. File a weekly claim on Sunday or Monday every week you are not working and request the state to pay you benefits.

You will have to provide a declaration about your employment search for the week (where you looked for work, what you might have applied for, etc).

4. Begin your claim online.

If you need help, us the electronic contact option on the website and someone will call you within 48 hours. In my experience, once I spoke with a representative, I made a lot of progress with my claim. (It took me 9 months, but I should receive up to $4,000 in back pay for a course I lost during the pandemic in 2020. I spoke with three adjudicators in that time and each one helped me get further with claiming more benefits than I thought I was eligible for.)

Keep track of your Customer ID and every communication you have with OED (via email or phone). 

Other Considerations

Your weekly unemployment benefit amount will be based on your past earnings records. It can be tricky estimating your earnings in given pay periods and work cycles because colleges count our work time differently than OED. Consult each HR website (typically under payroll information, earnings history, paystub) to provide accurate reporting of your gross income at each college you work at. Your base pay will be the basis for how OED calculates the weekly benefits you will receive. 

There is a minimum amount of work you must do annually (currently 520 hours in Oregon) to be eligible for unemployment. You must also earn at least $1,000 in the first quarter of 2021. The minimum amount the state will pay out in weekly benefits is $157. The maximum amount is $673. 

OED contacts your employer(s) to get “reasonable assurance” of your wages. The school will answer an employer questionnaire to ensure you meet eligibility requirements. They will look at how many credit hours you taught in 2020 and are expected to teach in fall 2021. It is not important if you teach a variable amount of credit hours term to term. 

OED will consider if your weekly claim is submitted during a college’s “recess period.” These are student breaks in between each term. You will not receive benefits if your claim is for a recess period. 

You can set up an electronic deposit for your benefits or designate that a check is mailed to you. Unemployment benefits are taxable income. 

To Claim Your Weekly Benefit (Every Sunday or Monday You Are Unemployed)

OED will ask you a series of questions to determine if you are “able, available, and actively seeking work” to get your benefits. Answer YES or NO only! 

Helpful Resources

Teal Dunbar (she/her)
Labor Liaison for Dislocated Workers
Labor’s Community Service Agency, Inc., a United Way of the Columbia-Willamette Community Partner

9955 SE Washington #301, Portland OR 97216
Cell: 503.522.2104
Email: impacted@lcsaportland.org
Website: lcsaportland.org
Facebook: LCSA-Portland

Higher Education Rapid Response Information Session (June 6, 2021) with LCSA and OED

An Election Message From PSUFA's Outgoing Chair of Membership

Dear colleagues,

My name is Eli Ronick and I’ve been honored to hold the position of Chair of Membership over the last 2+ years. I’ve enjoyed getting to know a lot of you through membership drives and general membership meetings. I may have even signed you up! As I noted at the Winter GMM, I will be stepping down from the position after the Spring term. I’m writing this letter to you to share a bit about my experience in a leadership role within PSUFA as well as discuss moving forward together and how we can continue to build power.

I first became regularly involved with PSUFA in Fall of 2018. While working for our union, I often walked around buildings I’d never set foot in and talked to adjuncts in departments I hadn’t known existed at PSU. Up to that point, being an adjunct had been a fulfilling but often isolating experience. I loved working with university students but I missed the interaction with co-workers that I’d been a part of in other teaching work. Working with our union allowed me to see the diversity of knowledge and background of each of my adjunct colleagues and to feel, for the first time, a part of a community. It was this experience that led me to run for the executive council.

During my time as Chair of Membership, I’ve been grateful to connect with scores of adjuncts in departments all over campus. The conversations that most stuck with me were those in which adjuncts opened up to me about their financial hardships. Often, I was able to direct them to a variety of monetary and wellness-based support systems that they were pleased to learn were available to them. This meaningful work has often helped sustain me emotionally and spiritually. With the help of member organizers and other PSUFA volunteers, we’ve helped to sign up over 200 new members over the last two years. My department alone, World Languages & Literatures, has increased dues-paying members over 30%. This added revenue has helped directly fund the work of our executive council and the tireless effort of our bargaining team, who have brought you tangible gains like significant salary increases, new and strengthened benefit funds, and guaranteed annual orientation for new hires.

This is the part of the letter where I ask you to consider stepping up and running for office this Spring. Our union runs and functions only because people like you make it so. Don’t worry—we’ll definitely be around to help new council members learn the ropes, but these positions, especially the Chair of Membership, are vital for the continued power and growth of our union. Leaving it vacant would not put us at full strength. The bargaining team can only do so much. We need you to step up and do more. You can apply and read more at psufa.org/elections.

In solidarity,

Eli

March Membership Drive — Hop Aboard! 

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AAUP and PSUFA are joining forces to host a membership drive to help PSUFA build membership! The drive will take place March 1st through the 5th, and we’d love for you to join!

We’ve put together a phone banking plan to connect with potential members and have a conversation about the importance of becoming members. We know nothing replaces face-to-face conversations but we will continue to have conversations with folks over the phone. PSUFA and AAUP leaders have signed up to lead shifts throughout that week. 

Please consider signing up for a shift or two to help make some of these calls to fellow colleagues. AAUP will be providing raffled prizes such as gift certificates and gift cards to anyone who volunteers! 

All necessary materials will be provided beforehand, including a guide on how to set up a Google voice number so you don’t have to use your personal number and a reminder of the time slots you decide to sign up for. Building strength as a union is so tied to building membership. Your one shift could be the one that puts PSUFA over 50% membership, something vitally important for our union going forward.

Click here to sign up.

Testify to Oregon Legislators About Access to Healthcare

February 10 Update: The hearing has been moved to the week of February 15. Your testimony can be submitted up until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, February 16.

Is access to affordable healthcare important to you?

Our legislators are considering three bills that would provide healthcare for many part-time faculty at public colleges and universities, and there is a hearing to consider them this week.

We have a real chance at getting this legislation passed—for the first time ever, the governor allotted funds for it in her recommended budget—but it is still going to take a lot of work in this challenging financial climate to get it passed. To do so, we have to let our legislators know how important healthcare is to us, and how terrible it is to not have appropriate healthcare—especially now.

If you have testimony, please email it to Taylor Sarman, one of our advocates at the state capitol: taylor [at] columbiapublicaffairs.com.

Let's win this one!

Donate or Receive With Portland's Presents From Partners for Union Families

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Every year, Labor’s Community Service Agency and NW Oregon Labor Council organize Presents for Partners, a holiday gift drive for union families facing financial difficulties. (Read about the 2019 event here.) 

This year will be a contactless event that will give impacted union families a ready-to-cook meal from Spin Catering, handcrafted stockings, gifts for the children to give their caregivers, gift cards, and toys.

To refer a family, including your own, to be a beneficiary, please email PSUFA benefits chair Jacob Richman at benefits [at] psufa dot org by December 7, 2020 (the sooner the better). 

If you would like to donate to LCSA’s Presents From Partners, which is also helping to support union families affected by the wildfires, you can donate here: https://www.lcsaportland.org/donate.

We want to give you money! Last day to apply for benefits!

PSUFA Benefits

PSUFA administers three benefits funds for part-time faculty: the Health Insurance Fund, the Faculty Education Fund, and the Professional Development Fund.  Benefits are available to members by application throughout the year.  "Fair-Share" and "Due-Share" members can both apply.  Send any questions or inquiries to: benefits(at)psufa.org

Health Insurance Fund:

The Health Insurance Fund offers health insurance stipends to part-time faculty and researchers, available each term they are employed at the University. Stipends are dispensed along with the applicant’s paycheck and can be used to offset the cost of paying for individual health insurance premiums (medical, vision, and dental). To be eligible for the Health Insurance Fund, faculty must be teaching/researching during the term in which they apply and show documentation of their health individual insurance premium cost. Faculty must re-apply each term they are teaching to receive a stipend. 

In 2016, PSUFA negotiated with the University for substantial increases to the Health Insurance Fund. For fiscal years 2016 and 2017, PSUFA has $225,000 to divide evenly amongst applicants throughout the year. Applications are reviewed by a committee of PSUFA members and then processed by PSU Payroll.

*To apply, complete the Health Insurance Fund Application, and please observe the following deadlines:

May 1st for Spring term

Faculty Education Fund:

The Faculty Education Fund offsets the cost of tuition for part-time faculty who wish to take career-related PSU courses. Successful applicants to the fund pay $24 per credit for PSU courses. To be eligible for the fund, the applicant  must have taught for at least four terms at PSU and be employed in either the year preceding or the year in which a course is taken. A personal statement is needed to indicate how the Faculty Education Fund will support the applicant  professionally. Preference is given to applicants pursuing an advanced degree.

PSUFA has $45,000 to dispense to applicants of the Faculty Education Fund throughout the year. Applications are reviewed by a committee of PSUFA members. Due to limited resources, applicants are asked to limit the number of courses for which they are requesting support and consider the broader applicant pool when making their application.

*To apply, complete the Faculty Education Fund Application, and please observe the following deadlines and apply for the term in which you wish to take a course. 

May 1st for summer term course work. 

 

Professional Development Fund:

The Professional Development Fund provides grants of up to $2000 per year to part-time faculty members to cover the cost of professional development opportunities including travel, conferences, workshops, research, and more. Preference is given to faculty who are presenting, performing, exhibiting, or conducting primary research in their respective field. To be eligible for the fund, faculty must have taught for at least six terms at PSU and be teaching or employed as a researcher during the year in which they apply. Applications must be signed by the Department Chair by the submission deadline. 

PSUFA has $100,000 to dispense to applicants of the Professional Development Fund throughout the year. Applications are reviewed by a committee of PSUFA members and processed by the PSU Office of Academic Affairs.

*To apply, complete the Professional Development Fund Application, and please observe the following deadlines and apply for the term in which your professional opportunity will take place.  See our Professional Development Fund guidelines (PDF) and budget form (XLSX, PDF) for more information about how best to prepare your application. 

May 1st for Summer Professional Development

Apply for Executive Council Positions (paid)

A member of our Executive Council received additional academic work, and we need your participation to keep our union thriving!  Please see our job description (PDF) for Secretary. This position is compensated with a monthly stipend. 

ELIGIBILITY: To be eligible to apply for this position you need to be a PSUFA member (dues-share) in good standing and teaching/researching part-time at PSU during the 2016-2017 academic year.

APPLICATION PROCESS: Submit a brief letter of interest specifically addressing the qualifications listed in the job description, a current resume, and 2-3 references with email and phone contact information. Fair-share members will need to submit a PSUFA membership form (link to membership information).  Please send your application as a single PDF to:
 
Staci Martin, PSUFA President
president@psufa.org 

DEADLINE: Friday, November 4th, 11:59 P.M. Pacific.  Interviews will be conducted the following week and appointment decisions made by the President with the support and advice of the Executive Council (as per the PSUFA Constitution and Bylaws).

The Portland State University Faculty Association (PSUFA) is a democratic union that provides member advocacy; negotiates pay and benefits through collective bargaining; administers benefits for adjunct faculty; and seeks to improve their position at the University.

Apply for Executive Council Positions (paid)

We have had two vacancies on our Executive Council, and we need your participation to rebuild our council before Fall 2016! Please see our job descriptions below for Vice President of Grievances and Vice President of Membership (Organizing). These positions are both compensated with a monthly stipend. 

- Vice President of Grievances Job Description (PDF)
- Vice President of Membership & Organizing Job Description (PDF) 

ELIGIBILITY: To be eligible to apply you need to be a PSUFA member (Due-share) in good standing and teaching/researching as an adjunct at PSU during 2016-2017 academic year.

APPLICATION PROCESS: Submit a letter of interest specifically addressing the qualifications listed in the job description, a current resume, and 2-3 references with email and phone contact information. Fair-share members need to submit a PSUFA membership form (link to membership information). When applying for both positions, submit two separate applications.  Please send each application as a single PDF to:
 
Staci Martin, PSUFA President
president@psufa.org 

DEADLINE: 26 August 2016 11:59 P.M. Pacific; Interviews will be conducted the following week and appointment decisions made by the President with the support and advice of the Executive Council (as per the PSUFA Constitution and Bylaws).