COD faculty contract OK'd

After working for nearly a year without one, faculty at the College of DuPage finally have a contract.

Trustees approved an agreement Monday night that gives full-time teaching staff faculty raises of at least 3 percent through 2011. Their pay increases also are retroactive to July 1, 2007.

The negotiations started last spring and took so long because they used a new process: interest-based or win-win bargaining, explained Glenn Hansen, president of the College of DuPage Faculty Association. That type of contract discussion focuses on mutual issues and interests, as opposed to positions and personalities.

"I think we came out of it with everybody feeling rather positive," Trustee Kathy Wessel said.

The two big changes in the contract involved salary and insurance, Hansen said.

Annual pay is based on two things, level of education earned and years of experience.

The base pay for a first year professor with a master's degree in 2007, technically the first of the contract, was $41,428. While that base increased 3 percent in 2008, the professor got an additional boost for another year of service, as well. So, this year, that second year teacher, with another year of experience and a 3 percent increase to the base pay, would get $44,805, with the new deal.

The top pay in 2007, for someone with 20 years of service plus 111 credit hours above and beyond a master's degree was $112,684.

In the final year of the agreement, 2010-2011, the first year professor with a master's degree will make $45,270. The highest possible salary will be $123,134, again for 20 years of experience and 111 additional credit hours.

Hansen said the faculty also will make increasing contributions to the insurance plans each year, and will have higher insurance co-pays.

Members of both negotiating teams began training in the new process in April 2007. While the talks extended past end of the last contract, mediators weren't involved because progress was continually, even if it was slowly made, Hansen said. More than 80 percent of the faculty association, which includes 327 members, voted to approve the contract last month, he said.