A political candidacy policy that was approved at a Dec. 4 meeting of the Board of Trustees may be re-examined.

The Central Michigan University Faculty Association Executive board voted at a regularly scheduled meeting Thursday night to demand bargaining with CMU’s administration on the issue.

Nancy White, FA president and associate professor of finance and law, said the board authorized her to make the formal demand.

She has not yet notified the administration, but expects to do so at a monthly meeting of the two parties on Dec. 10.

White said there was a verbal agreement between the FA and administration on the policy last summer when contract negotiations were taking place, although the policy is not part of the newly approved contract.

According to the new policy, any employee from CMU who intends to run for a position of public office must first present a statement to his or her supervisor and respective vice president or provost.

The employee must also present a statement from the respective supervisor to the CMU personnel office within 20 work days after notification, stating appropriate arrangements have been made on how the position will correlate with employment at CMU.

The policy does not have any exceptions for political positions that are part-time, or those that are unpaid.

“I just think it’s very cumbersome. It requires so many people to sign off,” White said. There are just so many hoops to go through that are unnecessary.”

She said this issue was one of over one hundred the bargaining team negotiated last summer.

“We’re just looking at in more detail, giving it more attention now than in the summer,” White said.

She hopes the policy may be reworked to eliminate the written consent requirements. She agrees that employees still must inform their supervisor of a choice to run for office, but the process should be simpler.

Honors Program Director James Hill, who spoke in concern about the policy at the Board of Trustees meeting, said he hopes the FA’s demand will cause administrators to take a closer look at the agreement and hold an open forum to allow individual comment.

“You do public service as a civic obligation . I don’t understand why we have to put public acts as something that is suspect, that has to be justified,” he said. “Through negotiations, I feel like we could come up with a much more reasonable consent.”

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