Welcome to this Fall 2008 edition of the United Faculty web site. Greetings to you the faculty of the Grossmont and Cuyamaca Community Colleges, to the voters of East County, and to GCCCD Board Members.

These are challenging times for our District and our Union. There are different philosophies and ideas competing for funding and for acceptance. There are differing views as to what funding is available and how it should be spent as well as what is in the best interests of our students. UF feels funding should be spent on the most important resource first. Your union feels that you the faculty are the most important resource we can offer our students. Their success, in a very real way, is tied directly to and dependent on you the individual faculty member. We absolutely feel that success of our students and success of our district are directly related to our ability to attract and retain faculty like you – highly skilled, highly motivated professionals. As such, UF is dedicated to: 1)improving your salary, both amount and ranking within the state (currently our salary is ranked 56th out of 71); 2)retaining and where possible improving your benefits; and 3)maintaining and bettering working conditions that result in a more professional learning environment.

The purpose of this web site is to inform and motivate you, our reader. We want to inform you of the work your union does as it works to maintain and better the working conditions, salary, and benefits of today. We want to motivate you to work for your union, to press for and effect the changes necessary for our success. We offer what we feel has proven to be the best formula for the success of our students and for the attraction and retention of our highly skilled, professional faculty. We feel that better salaries, better benefits, and better working conditions can only translate to better success in the classroom. (Note: If we as an institution of higher education were to create a business model to examine who we are, what we do, and who our customer is we would then be able to identify our most important product as the education service we offer our students. It is of course you, the faculty member, who is responsible for development and delivery of that education service.)

Lastly, I would like to acknowledge and welcome all of our fellow union members within the District. Just recently, the GCCCD District became a fully unionized working environment in that all major employee groups are represented by a union. Welcome to California State Employees Association (CSEA) representing classified staff of the District and welcome to the Administrator's Association representing the administrators of the District.