Chapter Files [RESTRICTED], 1968-1996

Correspondence between chapter representatives and statewide officers and Administrative Office, and inter-chapter correspondence that was copied to UUP's Administrative Office, including memoranda and other materials distributed by campus administration on policies and other issues that chapter officers wanted to make statewide officers aware of. Topics include status of grievances; chapter meetings; chapter elections (including disputed elections); individual campus issues such as the proposed sale of a building used for campus or policies particularly impacting one campus; statewide issues such as SUNY policies and operations as a whole; negotiations commentary and committees; correspondence to campus presidents; and news articles sent to UUP's President on chapter informational picketing and higher education issues. Files for the health science centers (particularly for Brooklyn Health Science Center [formerly the Downstate Medical Center]) also contain correspondence regarding clinical practice management plans, and draft agreements. Chapter newsletters are also included in this series, although most are not complete runs. They are in separate folders for the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, after which time newsletters were included in the main chapter folders. Chapter newsletters inform members about upcoming meetings, the status of negotiations, messages from the chapter president, information on grievances affecting the chapter, and SUNY budget issues.

Chapter records precede the formation of UUP and include materials from the predecessor SPA chapter as well as occasional SUFT materials, including occasional newsletters. Early chapter files also include correspondence regarding members concerns' over the proposed merger of SPA and SUFT, early attempts to increase membership, frequent reports certifying elected officers for purposes of representation at the Delegate Assemblies, and copies of the chapter's constitutions and by-laws. The records from 1975 to 1977 contain many letters on administrative grievance matters, as well as election report forms and correspondence regarding members' resignations and chapter newsletters. The chapter files deal with the NEA/NYEA challenge to UUP in 1977-1978 to varying degrees. Other one time issues covered in this series include a 1974 survey of chapter activities, and correspondence in 1986 and 1987 regarding discretionary salary increases. The bulk of the files for the years 1989 to 1991 are made up of rosters of members receiving increases in salary and additional correspondence regarding discretionary salary adjustments, as well as chapter election reports. Election reports and "Article 16.4" information (by which the campuses are required to inform UUP of new employees) are frequent in the files covering 1991 to 1994. Correspondence between UUP's President and chapter leaders and members about campus-specific issues such as parking, teaching workloads, and grievances from CWA regarding chapter secretaries, as well as grievances filed by chapter members are common in the records from the 1990s.

Chapter files were maintained in several groupings, often with overlapping dates. In the course of processing, these files were organized into chronological order and duplicates eliminated. The files are currently arranged alphabetically in two chronological groupings, 1968-May 1993 and June 1993-1996. Misfiles were frequently found and corrected during processing, although no systematic review was made to ensure that all misfiles were found and corrected. The most common misfiles were between similarly named chapters, such as Stony Brook and Stony Brook Health Science Center, the three Buffalo-area chapters, and the various health science centers.

There are occasional gaps, or extremely sparse coverage, in the records relating to various chapters, particularly prior to 1980 and for the early 1990s. Additional chapter files (mainly covering 1975 to 1981) are located in Subseries 3.2 of Subgroup III, Office of the President. In addition, for the records in this series, particularly for the period of the late 1970s and 1980s, the amount of correspondence existing for a chapter seems to be directly related to the degree of activism and involvement of the chapter president in UUP at the statewide level. During a preliminary processing effort undated materials were included at the very back of the earliest file. However, these materials may or may not predate the other materials in the folder. Infrequently correspondence in this subseries includes a notation that the incoming letter being responded to is filed under the correspondent's name in the alphabetical files. These files are included in Subgroup IV, Office of the Secretary, Series 5. Finally, it should be noted that although UUP's Administrative Office maintains files on individual chapters, they do not necessarily present a complete record of the activities of any given chapter, nor do they represent all of the records of a chapter. Individual chapter offices may have more extensive records relating to their chapter's past activities.