COD approves faculty contract extension

College of DuPage trustees have approved a two-year contract extension with the Glen Ellyn school's full-time faculty members.

The extension, which begins next August and ends the day before the start of the 2019 fall term, keeps the faculty's existing pay schedule. As a result, faculty members will get raises based only on increased levels of education and years of experience; there will be no cost-of-living raises.

The rest of the school's current contract with the College of DuPage Faculty Association will remain unchanged.

After Thursday night's 6-0 vote, COD board Chairwoman Deanne Mazzochi thanked the association for working with the administration and the board to make the agreement possible.

"I very much appreciate it," Mazzochi said. "I hope that we can set a new positive way of working together in the future."

Glenn Hansen, president of the COD Faculty Association, said members of the faculty union last week voted 207-47 to approve the extension. The union represents 306 full-time faculty members.

Hansen said the negotiation process, which "quietly" started in May, showed that "we can find solutions in pieces that added up to a whole."

"We solved problems without raising our voices," Hansen said. "I'm confident we will continue to find ways to solve outstanding issues with positive and constructive outcomes."

As part of the extension, the school's salary pool is projected to increase less than 2 percent on average over the two years, officials said.

Mazzochi said the COD board this year has devoted considerable time "to assessing what is best for the college's long-term institutional sustainability while delivering affordable education to our students."

Trustees in May 2014 approved an extension with the union that moved the expiration date of the contract from August 2015 to August 2017. The original pact was approved in June 2012 after 16 months of contentious negotiations.