Welcome back to all returning faculty and welcome to all new faculty. Most of us have been away from our campuses for more than a year and are anxious to return. The fall semester begins with many faculty members, coaches, and counselors face-to-face with students. For many of you, I’m sure the opportunity to be in the same physical space as your students and colleagues is a welcome return to normal. For others, it’s still fraught with concern, and for most of us, it’s a combination of both.

COVID Safety Advocacy

The IFO continues to advocate to the Chancellor and campus administrations to implement additional safety precautions. Our efforts include mask mandates, vaccine requirements, and flexibility for faculty to continue teaching online at each of our campuses. The safety of our members, students, and staff is our top priority. We should not ask faculty, coaches, and counselors to return to full face-to-face activities on campuses without enhanced safety protocols. We will continue to push for any strategy that reduces risk and helps keep people on our campuses safe and healthy.

So far, we have been successful in pushing:

Mask mandates on campuses.
Vaccine requirements for faculty, staff, and some students.
Remote delivery options for courses, on most campuses.

Read more about our efforts to protect our members here.

We strongly encourage everyone that can get vaccinated against COVID-19 to do so as soon as possible. Vaccines are the quickest and most effective way to end this pandemic. They are safe and protect our campuses, our communities, and our families. Vaccine appointments are available at VaccineConnector.mn.gov. Starting September 8 all faculty will be required to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing if working on campus.

IFO Commitment to Equity and Inclusion
The IFO continues our commitment to equity and inclusion. Our membership understands it is imperative that faculty challenge systemic oppression by empowering marginalized members through innovative and intentional equity and inclusion initiatives. Faculty must be empowered to lead efforts to foster learning communities that respect the inherent worth of all students, faculty, and staff based on values of justice, inclusion, and equity. The IFO has developed equity caucuses to support and organize faculty of color, women faculty, LGBTQ+ faculty, and faculty with disabilities. The caucuses are meant to mobilize the collective voices of our marginalized faculty to improve working conditions for all. In addition, our members developed and the IFO Board adopted an IFO Equity and Inclusion Strategic Plan. The strategic plan will guide the organization in the future as we strive for equity within our union to build solidarity and ensure that our collective voice is an inclusive voice. For more information about the IFO’s Equity Caucuses or equity and inclusion initiatives please contact IFO Equity Caucus Coordinator Anne Fischhaber at advocacy@ifo.org.

Equity 2030
In 2019, the MinnState Board of Trustees began a year-long initiative to reimagine higher education at the system level. Immediately, the IFO expressed an interest in partnering with the system office around issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. After considering the information gathered and assessing the value proposition the MinnState System provides the state of Minnesota, Chancellor Malhotra proposed one goal:

“By 2030, Minnesota State will eliminate the educational equity gaps at every Minnesota State college and university.”

Faculty must support this goal. We must help lead our campuses and communities to respond to the changing demographics of our State and our institutions. Our students’ success will depend on the work faculty does to break down barriers and create welcoming learning environments for everyone. The future success of our profession and institutions will be determined by the success of initiatives aimed at boosting enrollment and support for Minnesota’s marginalized communities.

Contract negotiations
The IFO negotiating team worked through the summer converting new Delegate Assembly resolutions to contract language and refining language from continuing contract goals to prepare our opening proposal for the 2021-2023 contract. Our negotiating team met with the MinnState negotiation team in July and again in August; and we have additional meetings scheduled on August 26 and 27, September 17 and 18, and October 26 and 27. At this time, negotiations have been focused on issues of mutual interest using the framework of interest-based bargaining (IBB). A full negotiations report will be sent out soon.

2022 Delegate Assembly
The 2022 IFO Delegate Assembly will be scheduled soon. Our biennial delegate assembly is where our members set IFO negotiation priorities and organizational goals. If you’re interested in representing your campus at the 2022 Delegate Assembly, please contact your campus faculty association leadership.

Legislative Update
The 2021 legislative session went into overtime, as the legislature and governor finally passed all the budget bills in late June. The Higher Education Omnibus Bill included $45M in direct campus aid and allowed for up to a 3.5% tuition increase each academic year of the biennium. The bill also included a number of initiatives we were proud to support, such as efforts to produce more teachers of color in MN, compensation for faculty that work with Open Educational Resources (OER’s) or departments that create Z-degrees.

In addition, we were successful in leading an effort to pass reforms to the selection process of the state’s pharmaceutical benefit manager (PBM) to create more competition and drive down costs.

You can read a comprehensive legislative update here.

Let me conclude by simply saying, “thank you.” Thank you for all that you do for your colleagues as a member of the IFO, everything you do for your students, and everything you do to make Minnesota a great state to be a faculty member and a resident. The sacrifices you have made over the last 18 months have shown the resiliency and passion our faculty, coaches, and counselors have for our students, our universities, and our profession. Because of you, I’m proud to call myself a 33-year employee of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities.