On April 22, 2026, CalArts met with the Special and Regular and Technical Faculty units and exchanged a draft proposal on workload. CalArts stated that its goal on such a proposal was equity and ensuring that teaching, service, and professional practice are appropriately captured for Regular and Technical Faculty, and that Special Faculty are paid the same for the same work (e.g., a Special Faculty providing mentoring for six students is measured the same as a Regular Faculty doing the same). Should Faculty units want to further explore this model, there will be a need to build out a typology that provides for course equivalency (e.g., a seminar course with multiple submitted drafts and essays may be the equivalent of a larger lecture course with exams and final project from a workload perspective). CalArts specified that this was classified as a draft to obtain CU-UAW’s input on whether they would like to explore this workload model further, which is not only tied to the federal credit hour as it should be, but also a good standard other higher education institutions use. Should the CU-UAW units be interested in this workload proposal, CalArts can build it out further (e.g., further specifications for Technical Faculty and Librarians, etc.).
CalArts further exchanged its counterproposal on Grievance and Arbitration for faculty and Academic Freedom, using the AAUP definition of Academic Freedom as is the norm in academia. CalArts also exchanged its proposal on the obligation period of Regular and Technical Faculty and Special Faculty and appointments. For Special Faculty appointments, CalArts offered a proposal whereby Special Faculty can get to one- or two-year contracts if they are at or above a 0.5 FTE continuously for a period of time. For Regular and Technical Faculty, CalArts maintained the provisions of renewal or nonrenewal found in the Faculty Handbook as arrived at through the shared governance process, and stated its position that it must maintain the ability to non-renew for programmatic/curricular changes and enrollment drops, as articulated in the Faculty Handbook.