Dear EECS faculty and students.
The university and UAW 4811, the union of Academic Student Employees, reached an interim agreement in February that has allowed the continuation of academic internship programs for the Spring 2024 semester.
As many of you know, historically EECS and Data Science have had a number of academic interns who help out in office hours or lab sections as part of their pedagogical training. In 2020, the university and the ASE union agreed to an Academic Intern agreement, which set out guidelines for these academic internship programs. Late last year, the EECS & DSUS programs determined that they would be unable to offer academic internship programs fulfilling those guidelines in time for the Spring 2024 semester, and planned to suspend AIs for Spring 2024.
As part of the interim agreement reached earlier this semester, some of those guidelines were waived for the Spring 2024 semester to allow the department to offer AI programs. The guidelines that were waived all related to standards for pedagogy courses for academic interns. All of those guidelines will come into effect after the Spring 2024 semester ends. (Note: the university reserves its absolute managerial right to cancel academic internship programs this semester and in future semesters.)
The following guidelines have not been waived for this semester, so all academic internship programs must follow these guidelines:
- Academic interns must be enrolled in AI units for course credit (CS 197 or DATA 198)
- No one can be a repeat academic intern,
- Academic interns cannot have sole discretion over the assignment of grades, curriculum choices, content of assessments, or the facilitation of sections or labs for the course that they are assisting.
You can also direct any questions about the settlement to berkeley+eecsds@uaw2865.org.
ASEs and university representatives appreciate each and every opportunity to work together in furtherance of common goals.
Sincerely,
Claire Tomlin,
Chair
EECS Department
and
Gabe Classon,
EECS Student and ASE
Head Steward, UAW 4811