Now, teaching staff is voting on whether to authorize what would be the first-ever faculty strike at an Oregon public university.
The OIT faculty union is demanding better pay, more affordable health insurance, and changes in faculty workload. After 15 months of ongoing back-and-forth, university administration submitted their 鈥渓ast, best, and final鈥� offer.
Franny Howes, a faculty union board member, says she was disappointed.
鈥淲e鈥檝e put forward a lot of proposals that we think are fair," said Howes. "We鈥檝e made some concessions. But we鈥檙e still really far apart on the core issues of workload, salary, benefits, retrenchment, and other really important issues.鈥�
Ken Fincher represents the university administration. He says that with the faculty鈥檚 unreasonable demands given the school budget, they were too far from understanding the administration's perspective.
鈥淲e鈥檙e in, hopefully, the end of a pandemic, but we鈥檙e still feeling the effects of the pandemic," said Fincher. "And admission in higher education is questionable. So to come and ask for a 20% salary increase is just unrealistic in so many ways.鈥�
Fincher says that faculty鈥檚 requests would burden students with higher tuition.
But the union says it鈥檚 already difficult for students to have professors who are stretched too thin.
The union is currently voting on whether to go on strike. If the two parties can鈥檛 agree, a strike could begin as soon as April 17.