UConn-AAUP Update November 20, 2025
- University Decisions Impacting Departments
- Action Update
- Chief Negotiators Blog November 18th
- Opinion Piece: Support UConn Faculty Reasonable Contract Demands
- SEBAC Public Student Loan Forgiveness Statement
University Decisions Impacting Departments
Over the past two weeks, UConn-AAUP leaders have heard concerns from members regarding the ongoing implementation of the Provost’s five-year financial plan. This plan was put into place two years ago and it called for 15-19% budget cuts across academic units. These cuts are directly and negatively impacting faculty working conditions and student learning experiences. Larger class sizes, reduced course offerings, and withering support for graduate students that are the result of these budget cuts are placing greater and greater strain on UConn faculty, students, and staff.
The cuts will have a long-lasting, negative impact on UConn’s well-established record of research, teaching, service, and outreach. UConn-AAUP stands in solidarity with our partners in the UConn Labor Coalition; together we insist that the UConn administration fully fund academic units and fully support UConn students, faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate workers. And we call on the UConn Board of Trustees to ensure greater fiscal accountability and transparency from the UConn administration.
Action Update:
We estimate 400 members took action to make the union stronger and to fight for a better UConn together. Amazing! Congratulations! The Department that sent the most e-mails will be getting a coffee hour on the union! (to be announced shortly!)
There is still considerable frustration that there has not been movement on our key bargaining priorities as you will see in the update below. Clearly showing the need for all of us to stay engaged and informed.
The organizing committee will be meeting Monday evening at 5:15 to discuss next steps. Join us at the office (pizza included!) or join us hybrid! Let gina know ginadb@uconnaaup.org All are welcome and encouraged to be part of the movement for a stronger UConn.
Chief Negotiators Blog
11.18.2025
If you thought that the action event on October 20th was a home run, the action event on November 18 “one-upped’ that event and can best be described as an “inside the park” home run. From the day starting with an op-ed in the Daily Campus, to over hundreds of emails of support for paid family/medical leave, academic freedom, and job security being sent to the administration’s negotiating team, the rounding of third base and sliding into home was made by Mary Beth Allen, LCL. She requested the opportunity to address the administration’s negotiating team directly, and left it all on the field. Pointing out that those emails they had received were from UConn-AAUP members on the outside watching very closely what is happening at the table. Those concerned with caring for the health of their colleagues and their families; concerned with the actions at the national level which are threatening academic freedom and the autonomy of institutional decision-making; and concern from those who pour their hearts out to students and UConn, yet have to worry whether they are going to be renewed for another year. If you see Mary Beth on campus, tip your cap to her and say, “Thank you for advocating on my behalf.”
Other than that, the negotiating session was uneventful as the administration continues to make unfulfilled promises of returning counter proposals.
Opinion Piece: Support UConn Faculty Reasonable Contract Demands
The UConn AAUP Executive Committee wrote and submitted the below printed letter; highlighting the need for the University to agree to important contract proposals that are part of the negotiations of the new contract.
https://dailycampus.com/2025/11/18/ltte-support-uconn-facultys-reasonable-contract-demands/
SEBAC Public Student Loan Forgiveness Statement
Public Service Loan Forgiveness is not a handout — it’s a promise made to the public workers who keep our state running – and has a direct impact on the services these workers provide to our communities. Nurses and doctors, teachers and researchers, public safety officers and caretakers, engineers and social workers — all of them chose service over higher private-sector salaries with the understanding that after ten years of public service, their federal student loans would be forgiven.
Now the federal administration is attacking the once bipartisan PSLF promise, threatening the benefit for all of Connecticut’s public sector workers. Public sector workers are the people who keep our streets safe and our children fed and our hospitals running. And just as private sector workers have been let down by broken promises — from the weakening of labor protections to the near-dismantling of the National Labor Relations Board — public sector workers are now facing the same playbook: make a promise, benefit from their labor, then pull the rug out from under them.
Public service workers face uncertainty, ridicule, lower pay and hard work every day. PSLF is a small way to repay them for their sacrifice. Failing to uphold this promise doesn’t just hurt workers, it undermines every classroom, clinic, and community that depends on these individuals and services in their everyday lives.