Happy holidays!

The FA wishes you a well-deserved winter break and a happy new year. We thank you for your efforts to provide our students with quality services and instruction as we continue to navigate through the seemingly never-ending pandemic.

Online certification

There have been many questions regarding online certification this semester. To teach online next semester, you must be certified and appear on the CIP certification list or on the QbD list.

Unfortunately, teaching remotely these past three-and-a-half semesters does not certify you to teach online. If you are not certified and interested in teaching online, go to your MySCCC and click the Suffolk Online link, then scroll down to the Online Faculty page. You will find the necessary forms to fill out on the right-hand side of this page.

• If you wish to propose a course that has already been taught online in your discipline, use the Course Assignment Form.
• If you wish to propose a course that has not been taught online in your discipline, use the Course Development Form.

Do note that your chair must sign off on your proposal, so you might want to contact the chair before starting the process. The deadline for spring 2023 proposals is April 11, 2022.

Negotiations survey

The adjunct task force received the disaggregated data created from questions they formed after reading the raw data from the adjunct negotiations survey. The task force will analyze this data in January to identify the needs of our adjunct colleagues for the upcoming negotiations with the college. They will report their analysis at the February Executive Council meeting.

NORA reminders

The NORA deadline passed on November 5. Here are a few reminders:

• If you did not submit your NORA, you need to contact adjunct services to be put on the late list. Note, however, that you will be placed on the bottom of the B list.
  
  
• You must contact your chair or supervisor immediately in writing if your availability changes from what you listed on your NORA or if you no longer can take your assignment. While chairs and supervisors might be able to accommodate these changes, the college is under no formal obligation to do so. The college is only obligated to offer you assignments you are certified for within your stated NORA preferences if they are available.
  
  
• With enrollment continuing to drop each semester and departments offering fewer assignments, chances are you may not get an assignment on the campus you chose first on the NORA. If you have noted additional campuses on your NORA, you can ask your chair to contact the chairs at the other campuses to see if there are any assignments available at those campuses for you.
  

Important dates

• December 23 — Last day of classes, fall 2021
• December 27 — Grades due, fall 2021
• December 27 — Wintersession 2022 classes begin
• January 14 — Last day of classes, wintersession 2022
• January 20 — FA/Guild Winter Party
• January 24 — Spring 2022 classes begin

Associate membership

Adjunct colleagues sometimes contact me asking about how they can maintain their union membership during any semesters when they don't have assignments because they want to continue supporting the FA—which we love to hear, of course—and/or because they don't want a lapse in their NYSUT member benefits programs. The solution is to register for a NYSUT associate membership for any semesters when you're not actively working. Contact Anita who can give you the names and contact info for the employees at NYSUT who will walk you through the associate membership process.

Please contact me by phone (631-451-4151) or by email if you have questions regarding the above or any other union-related issues—and, again, happy holidays to all!