Viewpoints
‘How Berkeley Works’ explores different cuts into how Berkeley works as a public university, in the public interest. In our time of spiraling crises, as we imagine a braver, more compassionate and just world emerging from the pandemic, from racial justice struggles, and from ongoing challenges of climate change and decolonization: how and in whose interests does UC Berkeley work?
Academic Freedom and Unfair Labor Practice Charges Against UC
We write to remind you of your rights as faculty that are protected under the State of California’s Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA). At a time when free speech, assembly activity, and academic freedom are being threatened across the UC system...
The Chancellor’s statements on encampment and divestment
The Berkeley Faculty Association applauds Chancellor Christ and the Berkeley Divest Coalition around the Free Palestine Encampment for having concluded their negotiations despite intense external pressure from the UC Regents and the Office of the President. We believe...
BFA Statement on Encampments
We write to strongly condemn the violent repression of peaceful protests by students across the country, including, alarmingly, at our sister campus UCLA. Over 2,000 students, and many faculty, have now been arrested at encampments across the country, even though 99%...
Important Changes To Your Pension Plan 2024
Dear Colleagues, We write to inform you of changes to our pension plans. Sadly, at a time when our salaries stagnate or decline in real terms, and our health benefit costs have sky-rocketed, our pension plans are now also being revised without consultation from 1 July...
An open letter to the new Chancellor of UC Berkeley from the Berkeley Faculty Association
Congratulations on your appointment as Chancellor. You have been selected by a process that affords little role to faculty, or any other group of employees on campus. The people hiring you have little experience of the campus you will lead. Here is what you need to...
FA Support of BOARS Math Requirements Recommendation
The Council of UC Faculty Associations, the statewide organization of faculty associations of which the Berkeley Faculty Association is a member, wrote to the UC Regents objecting to their ongoing interference in Senate faculty’s delegated authority, this time in the...
Objection to Regents’ Proposed New Website Policy
The Council of UC Faculty Associations, the statewide organization of faculty associations of which the Berkeley Faculty Association is a member, wrote to the UC Regents objecting to their proposed new website policy. Dear UC Regents, At its meeting on January 24, the...
Letter to Chancellor Christ on delayed merits and promotions
Dear Chancellor Christ, We write to express our dismay at the continued serious delays to merit and promotion cases for Senate faculty and our lack of confidence in the office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. A decade ago, when the campus was dealing with a...
Council of UC Faculty Associations Letter on Academic Freedom and Palestine
Dear Members We wish to inform you that further to the earlier statement by the Board of the Berkeley Faculty Association on Academic Freedom and Palestine, CUCFA, the umbrella organization of Faculty Associations across the UC system, has written this letter to...
Berkeley Faculty Association on Academic Freedom and Palestine
Photo credit: Anita Liu/The Daily Californian Dear colleagues,The Berkeley Faculty Association is deeply alarmed at the chilling climate that undermines the academic freedom of instructional faculty, and the free speech rights of the rest of our campus community, to...
Faculty Association letter objecting to unreasonable increases in health benefit costs
Below is a letter the Council of UC Faculty Associations sent to UC President Michael Drake and the UC Regents objecting to healthcare benefit costs to employees increasing by 15% to 193%, depending on plan and coverage. After the original letter was sent, CUCFA...
Burnout at UC Berkeley
It's Spring Break, finally. And I am sick. Again. Being sick over Spring Break has become a regular feature of my working life at UC Berkeley over the past decade. It may be just that I am getting old and my body can no longer sustain the intensity of work it once...
Jan 10, 2022
Photo: Daniel Parks