By Greta Lieske
IV Leader Editor
After two full weeks of classes in the 2008-2009 academic
year, the IVCC board and faculty announced Aug. 28 that tentative agreement had
been reached on a new contract.
According to the statement from the college’s community
relations office, the contract will be for a three-year period. While the board
and faculty negotiating teams have reached this agreement, the contract must
still be approved by the board and ratified by members of the faculty union.
Those approvals are expected to occur in September, according to college
officials.
The agreement was a long time in coming. When students
started classes on Aug. 18 it was the first time in 14 years that a contract had
not been agreed on by the start of the school year.
However, President Jerry Corcoran does not believe it is
atypical.
“It’s my understanding,” said Corcoran, “that it is not
unusual for this to occur in other educational settings.” Until the contract is
agreed to, faculty continue working under the “terms and conditions outlined in
the four-year contract that ended at the beginning of the fall semester,”
Corcoran said.
While the contract dispute may be nearing an end, faculty
members still have recently voiced concerns about the working atmosphere at the
college. According to an Aug. 28 article in The Times, at the Aug. 27 board
meeting Biology instructor Tim Horger expressed his dissatisfaction with the
situation and “interference due to micro-management” by the IVCC Board of
Trustees.
Horger said that although he is not on the faculty's
negotiation team “it does seem that contract talks have slowed.” Before the
tentative agreement was announced, Corcoran expressed that he has “tremendous
respect for the members of both teams addressing [the] matter” and was
“confident” that negotiations would soon come to a conclusion.
Negotiations had started in June.