Faculty Staff Union

Representing Faculty Members and Librarians at UMass Boston Since 1976

Nuts & Bolts: Weekly Updates from Our Union

Calling all Celtics Fans!
We have Celtics tickets for Monday, October 26th against the Chicago Bulls at TD Garden! Thanks to a generous grant from the MTA to support membership activities, we have a block of seats, available on a first-come, first-served basis to dues-paying members.

Tip-off is at 7pm. We are seated in The Rafters section, with comfy seats, room to mingle, and a specialty concessions area. It’s a chance to spend an evening with colleagues from across campus, away from committee meetings and overflowing inboxes, and to meet people you might not otherwise cross paths with at UMB. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or just want a fun night out, come join us.

If you’d like a ticket, email us at fsu@umb.edu. Seats are limited and are likely to go quickly.
Remembering David Hunt
Professor Emeritus David Hunt, who passed away last month, was a key figure in establishing the Faculty Staff Union here at UMass Boston in the 1970s. A historian of the Vietnam War and of early modern France, David joined the UMB faculty in September 1969, when the campus was still downtown at Park Square, and he was a member of the history department for decades. His book Vietnam’s Southern Revolution was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2008.

The University Archives and Special Collections, in its oral history of UMB, published Professor Hunt’s own reflections of his early years on campus. In it, he writes about arriving on campus, where he “found many young faculty colleagues, brilliant and attractive people full of energy and idealism and seemingly as avid for friendship, for comradeship, as I was…We talked incessantly about our courses and our students and frequently exchanged classroom visits and in the process fashioned a teaching culture at UMB that still survives today.” He concluded that his students and colleagues “gave a meaning to my existence that I have tried ever since to honor.” That kind of solidarity is what builds and sustains a union, and we are grateful to David and to those who worked alongside him in establishing the FSU.

 

Read a reflection about his impact, just recently published by one of David’s many former students, as well as David’s personal account of starting at UMB.
A few more updates
  • October 16th deadline for FSU anti-racism grants. Apologies, we mixed up our dates on this last week – the deadline to apply is this Friday.
  • Dues-paying members can vote in our election (check your email from last Friday if you haven’t voted yet). NTT faculty vote on their representatives, and all members can vote on whether to endorse the MTA Fair Wages Campaign, which is pushing the Governor’s office to allocate 10% annual cost of living adjustment raises to state higher education workers for each of the next three years.
  • Check the comments on your AFR/ALR. By last Friday your department’s personnel committee and department Chair should have given comments on your AFR. Please check them carefully and in the space below them for “faculty comments” makes any necessary notes or corrections. The AFR is a very important record of your work, so double-check that your DPC and department Chair’s comments are accurate.