Faculty at Slippery Rock University voted last week to ratify a tentative four-year agreement with the state.

Slippery Rock University's faculty joined fellow union members in a vote last week to ratify a tentative four-year agreement with the state.

SRU faculty are members of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, which represents membership from all Pennsylvania state-owned universities.

Faculty union members across the system voted from Nov. 11 to 13. Final tallies showed 94 percent of the members favored of the contract.

APSCUF tallied ballots Friday in its Harrisburg, but said in a news release that it does not tally results by campus.

With this step complete, the document goes to Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education's Board of Governors for approval.

A PASSHE official said the board next meets Jan. 15 and 16, but it may call a special meeting in December to consider ratifying the agreement.

The two parties entered interest-based bargaining last year.

Ken Mash, president of APSCUF, said seeing PASSHE Chancellor Dan Greenstein and its board of governors directly involved in negotiations showed a new level of commitment to the system's relationship to its faculty members.

“These were by far the most engaging negotiations that I've participated in with the state system,” Mash said. “We had good conversations about issues of concern for us and issues of concern for them.”

Mash said union members accepted lesser increases when compared to other statewide unions because of a growing concern about the toll rising tuition costs are creating for students and their families.

“They did so in order to keep tuition low for our students, and as an act of reaching out to the governor and the legislature,” Mash said. “It is simply unacceptable for Pennsylvania to be last or near last on every measure of state support for public higher education.”

Mash said the cost of higher education will continue to be a problem moving forward, one he wants to see solved collectively. He said tuition cannot be frozen every year, and faculty members cannot take less forever.

“We also realize that is not a pattern that can continue,” he said.

Mash said he wants the governor's office and other state legislators to work to make public higher education more affordable for working-class Pennsylvanians.

“They need to seriously address that we are hurting a generation,” he said.

APSCUF will post the full contract, which expires in 2023, on its website after ratification is complete.

Representatives from SRU said they could not comment on negotiations between the union and PASSHE.