Classes resume at Cal U. after strike by professors ends
CALIFORNIA – The three-day strike last week by union professors at 14 state-owned universities, including California University of Pennsylvania, isn’t expect to cause delays to the semester or affect December graduation, the State System of Higher Education said Monday when classes resumed as scheduled.
“The faculty should be able to make up for lost time,” State System spokesman Kenn Marshall said. “We’re not going to have to add time to the semester.”
The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, which represents nearly 5,500 professors and coaches, called the walkout at 5 a.m. Wednesday after talks broke down and its members worked for hundreds of days without a contract. A tentative pact was reached Friday afternoon, putting an immediate end to the strike.
The union said it accepted wage and benefits concessions in exchange for the State System eliminating most of the 249 contract changes it proposed in June. The details of the three-year contract were being withheld until it receives final approval from the State System’s board of governors and APSCUF’s nearly 5,500 members, coaches excluded.
APSCUF said it could take six weeks for the union to review the tentative agreement and put it to a vote of its members.
Marshall said the governors don’t meet again until Jan. 25, but the board could call a special meeting in December to vote on the contract.
Several Cal U. students who were approached on campus Monday said they were glad to see the strike behind them.
“I’m happy I’m back in class,” said Cal U. senior Nicholas Nypaver, who will graduate in the spring.
Daniel Beeck and Rachael Kriger, both editors of the Cal U. student newspaper, said the student body there appeared to be overwhelmingly in support of the professors during the walkout.
“I was out on the line with them,” said Kriger, editor in chief of the Cal Times. “I’m glad it was short because I didn’t want to transfer.”
“It was tough seeing the professors not getting what they wanted,” said Beeck, the paper’s sports editor.