University of Virginia: “Library Employees Protest Changed Title”

From The Cavalier Daily:

Incoming library staff will no longer be designated as faculty, University Librarian Karin Wittenborg told library employees in an email March 1. Instead, all future positions within the University library system, including vacancies created by retirements and departures as well as newly created positions, will be posted as University staff.
The decision was met with strong pushback from many in the library community. Forty-three members of the Library Faculty Assembly sent a letter to Wittenborg in February voicing their opposition to the proposed change. The faculty expressed concern about their future roles within the University community under this new system.
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“With the changing types of skills needed in a leading research library, it has become increasingly difficult to define what makes a new position faculty status,” she [Wittenborg] said.
Critics, however, cited the importance of the faculty designation within the University self-governance system.

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