POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

Our extended and ongoing contract impasse and our even more extended and ongoing contract campaign have made us aware of many opportunities that we have missed to connect more effectively with our members, with constituencies within our university community, and with groups in the communities that our university serves. As a chapter, we are now doing a number of things that we should probably have been doing routinely and that we will certainly continue to do even after our contract is finally settled.

As part of our effort not only to secure a fair contract but to build on the lessons that we are learning through our contract campaign, we have organized a series of community forums. The first forum was held in Yellow Springs, Ohio, several weeks ago, and the flier below is for the second forum, which is being held in Dayton. I would like to thank everyone involved in organizing these events, but I need to single out Sirisha Naidu, who has done the bulk of the preparation work for these events even though she also serves as our chapter’s Grievance Officer and has had more than the usual number of issues to deal with in that role.