UCLA FA to Rejoin CUCFA

Some years ago the UCLA Faculty Association was a member of Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), but dropped out.  With new leadership at CUCFA and the UCLA FA, it seemed like a good time to revisit our membership in the Council, and recently the Executive Board voted unanimously to pursue a renewed membership with CUCFA.

What is CUCFA you ask? CUCFA (or “the Council”) is a coalition of the faculty associations at University of California campuses.  Each campus chapter is an independent organization with the Council serving as a coordinating and information sharing body.  Each campus chapter delegates a representative to the Council, which meets as a body annually (and more regularly over email).  The Council employes an executive director who also serves as an advocate in Sacramento for faculty issues before the state government.  Currently, UCLA is the only campus faculty association in the UC system not affiliated with CUCFA.

In the fall, the UCLA FA Executive Board met with CUCFA president Patricia Morton (Art History, UCR) who warmly welcomed closer collaboration between campus Faculty Associations.  During the winter we gathered information about CUCFA and kept in close touch with CUCFA deliberations via an Executive Board liaison to CUCFA.

Based on all of this information the Board considered the following motions:

First, “Whereas one key function of the UCLA Faculty Association listed in the By-laws is “to encourage the development of, and to cooperate with, parallel or similar organizations on other campuses of the University of California”; and whereas the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) is an organization that coordinates the activities of Faculty Associations on eight of the UC campuses, therefore the Executive Board affirms the desirability of formal affiliation with CUCFA, and authorizes the payment of affiliate fees to CUCFA.”

Second, “The UCLA FA Executive Board creates and empowers a subcommittee to formalize affiliation on its behalf.  The subcommittee will report back to the Executive Board and the Treasurer at its earliest convenience.  In the meantime, the Executive Board directs its Chair to notify the membership of the decision to affiliate with CUCFA via electronic communication as soon as possible.”

The motions carried with 7 votes in favor and none opposed.  For more information about CUCFA, see the organization’s website http://cucfa.org/about.php

As with all decisions of the Executive Board, FA members who wish to comment or want more information are encouraged to contact the chair, Toby Higbie, to comment here, or to email the FA at uclafacultyassociation (at) gmail (dot) com.

In the meantime, we look forward to greater collaboration with faculty on other UC campuses to address system-wide issues in the future!