State university system on the brink of its first faculty strike
Casey Mellon, 19, didn't think a faculty strike would actually happen until two weeks ago when she was in her pop-culture writing class at West Chester University.
"My professor ran into our class 10 minutes late and had made another syllabus entirely, threw out our old one and was like, hey, this is real," said the sophomore English and secondary education major from Abington. The new syllabus shortened a project and moved up the due date, she said.
Since then, it's only become more real.
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and its faculty union are locked in another round of marathon negotiations that began Friday and are due to continue through Sunday - a last-ditch attempt to reach an agreement and keep classes going for the system's 105,000 students.
Kenneth M. Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, said that absent a deal, the 5,500-member union will strike at 5 a.m. Wednesday, likely bringing education to a midsemester halt at the 14 state universities: Bloomsburg, Cheyney, Clarion, California, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Millersville, Mansfield, Slippery Rock, Shippensburg, and West Chester.
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