What if the other side will not join the conversation?

Good question.  Consider, enacting the outcome you want as an invitation to join the conversation. Individually and in groups.

For instance, have representative groups (senate, union) issue separate or better a joint call for a conversation structured to build trust and strengthen UA AND announce that we will take the following steps toward demonstrating our willingness to do what it takes to build trust and strengthen UA in the hope that doing these will move us in that direction AND create conditions for the both sides to join the conversation called for here.

[These actions are the answers we get when we start with this question:  what would our campus community look like, work like, if faculty and administration really were on the same team?  Keep in mind this is not an invitation to re-phrase and recycle the same criticisms of the other side, but to see if we can discover ways we might 'be the change,' ways we might act as if we were on the same team to help our students in the hope that these actions bring about the end we are enacting.]

While each faculty and staff member working on the ground with students will choose to Intensity Our Commitment to Each Other in their own way, here are some illustrative ideas:

Critically review each syllabi or each routine interaction we have with students to find at least one way we can revitalize it, be more responsive and helpful and open to meeting our students where they are rather than criticizing them for not meeting us where we are (see very bottom of this entry).

Initiate conversations within work units to do the same at the unit level or to create teams (of similar types of colleagues or cross-functional teams) to brainstorm ways to do this because it is good for our students. 

While our goal should be to be pro-active and student focused in ways that do not require new resources, when a particularly powerful idea comes up that might be scale-able, find a friendly administrator to bounce the idea off of (because this is complex organization we work within and ideas will likely have implications beyond what the initiator considered if it is to be scaled up) and if there is agreement on the power of the idea work up a plan to share the idea through the chain of command to see if resources might be found. 

Share all these ideas and information in one centralized location, for all to see, and each semester the union and senate will hold a joint meeting to review and celebrate successes.

Just some thoughts.  No guarantees, of course.  But seems worth considering.

And the initial premise (that the other side will not join the conversation), in my view, needs to be understood not as an attack statement or moral judgment, but a recognition of the fact there trust is low and there are good reasons on all sides to be wary, even if the call is to join a conversation to help our students and institution.

To build a meaningful conversation out of a context of distrust will take time, start with small steps like these (perhaps, or other steps), and requires all of us to work as hard to understand and respect those we disagree with as we are willing to work to help our students and institution thrive.

We feel disrespected and not trusted.  It is not realistic to expect to change that if we frame our efforts in language that is disrespectful to those we want to partner with, no matter how divergent our perspectives on the challenges we face.

Speaking to faculty in particular...

Consider using more interactive teaching tools, boosting formative assessments particularly very early in the term, ask your students how to enliven your course with non-traditional texts or tasks or multiple modes of delivery, hold office hours at Zips football games, try to do less criticizing of students for their lack of writing skills or numeracy and, instead, integrate into your courses opportunities for you to help them improve these foundational and transferable skills, talk with colleagues to share and borrow ideas that could be on this list....