Polisci Professor Nicole Krassas advocates for ECSU faculty with the Board of Regents (BOR)

By Allison Cox

Professor Krassas and other members of the faculty from all four CSCU university campuses have been in negotiations with the Board of Regents every week since January over faculty contracts. Due to a legal agreement that prevents bargaining teams from talking to the press about negotiations, she's unable to provide any specifics about the details of the discussions. However, I was able to discuss with her how skills she has gained as a professor of political science has provided her and the group benefits during these negotiations and described how and why her education was so important to her in these discussions.

The study of political science is about competing ideologies, this of course includes dealing with conflicts over labor contracts that certainly have ideological elements. Each side has their own intentions; the Board of Regents aim is to save money and have a strong oversee of the professors in each Connecticut State Universities. The other side wants fair policies in regard to their employees. Professor Krassas and the rest of her team more specifically represent the librarians, coaches, and teaching. As she commented “…when presenting arguments to an ideological opposition it is important to make sure that the rhetoric uses the opponents ideology.  Otherwise, there is no hope of convincing someone of the wisdom of a proposal”.  As she continued explaining, for instance, if the faculty wanted something that might cost money, and the Board of Regents was opposed to spending more money, the faculty might try to make the case that a short-term investment would result in long-term savings, or the faculty could propose cutting something else to fund the new proposal.  What I learned from her comments is that what is important in negotiations is to understand the motivations of your ideological opponent. As she elaborated: “This is one of the principles of democratic engagement. Whether we are talking about legislators coming to agreement on legislation or employees negotiating contracts, the skills are the same”. 

More information about the negotiations can be found on the CSU-AAUP website: https://csuaaup.org/media-coverage/. This is unfortunately all the information she was able to provide. However her efforts are greatly appreciated and supported by the faculty across the CSU system. Her experience in the field of political science has helped her immensely through this process as negotiations continue over the summer.