Notebaert Museum workers urge support for union
Employees of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park are calling on colleagues to support their campaign to unionize with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The organizing campaign was made public Tuesday in a letter signed by 19 employees of the museum. It asks fellow workers to support the effort and urges museum managers to “honor our legal right to organize a union without facing intimidation or coercion.”
The drive to join AFSCME’s Council 31 follows the local’s successful organizing at the Field Museum, Newberry Library and the Art Institute of Chicago and its school.
AFSCME said the proposed bargaining unit would represent 45 employees at either the museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, or a collections facility in Ravenswood.
There was no immediate comment from the museum.
School of the Art Institute of Chicago president to retire
Elissa Tenny, the first female president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in its 157-year history, has announced she will retire from her post next year.
The school will use a firm to conduct a national search for a new president.
Tenny was hired as a provost at SAIC in 2010 and became president in 2016. During her tenure, she helped increase the school’s endowment by more than $102 million and addressed issues of diversity and inclusion. She created an anti-racism committee in 2020 and increased hires of full-time faculty of color by 30% from 2016 to 2019, the school said.
Under Tenny’s watch, the school last year rescinded an honorary doctorate it had awarded the artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after he made racist statements. The school’s non-tenure-track instructors also unionized last year.