Objective Criteria for Satisfactory Academic Progress

Last year, some of our colleagues in the Art Department came to the GTFF with a complaint about how the Art Department had conducted the hiring for the 2010-11 academic year. Art had pledged to give preference to students more advanced in the program, but had not offered GTF appointments to several third-year Art students in favor of giving appointments to newer students instead.

The GTFF, on behalf of the Art students, filed a grievance that basically said "What the hey?" After weeks of back-and-forth with the University, they finally decided that they did not give appointments to three or four of our brothers and sisters because they were not making satisfactory academic progress (SAP). Most departments reserve the right to not give appointments to students who are not making satisfactory academic progress. This is all well and good. We did, however, ask that the Art Department prove that these students we're not making satisfactory academic progress. Tthe University counter-asserted that they didn't have to prove anything, as the Art GDRS stated that SAP would be based on a subjective judgment of the supervising faculty member.

In essence, the UO claimed that departments could either fire or refuse to hire GTFs based on the subjective judgment of the faculty and the GTFF had no right to ask for proof of lack of SAP. We feel that this is unacceptable. We do not believe that any worker at the UO should be fired or any student have their application refused without some sort of rational explanation.

We have remained steadfast in our proposal that departments be allowed to only use objective criteria - gpa, limits on the number of incompletes, exam completion by a certain time, etc. - when determining if a student is making satisfactory academic progress. Only by having stated measurements that all parties can know can a GTF know if their job is at risk and that they will be treated fairly.

The UO, conversely, believes that departments should have every right to make subjective judgments and reject any argument from us that implies that any department or professor might act from anything but purely academic motives. They strongly feel that our proposal would encroach on their academic prerogatives - in this case the ability to fire someone without explanation based on subjective judgment.

This is a very contentious issue, as it comes down to a fundamental conflict in labor-management relations; the University wants to reserve the right to fire or refuse to hire GTFs and use the excuse of lack of satisfactory academic progress, while the Union wants to protect the workers from the potentially random decisions of their bosses.