All management functions, rights, and prerogatives, written or unwritten, that have not been expressly modified or restricted by a specific provision of this Agreement are retained and vested exclusively in MIT and may be exercised by MIT at its sole discretion. Such management functions, rights, and prerogatives include but are not limited to the right:
A. To determine, establish, direct, and control MIT’s mission, objectives, priorities, organizational structure, programs, services, activities, facilities, locations, operations, and resources;
B. To recruit and appoint employees and to determine the size and composition of the workforce, including the number of research assistants, teaching assistants, and instructor Gs appointed each semester;
C. To determine the required qualifications, responsibilities, and assignment of employees;
D. To direct, assign, train, and otherwise supervise the work of employees;
E. To discipline or discharge employees for just cause and subject to the provisions of Article 6, Discipline and Discharge;
F. To determine the processes and criteria by which employees will be evaluated in their work performance;
G. To establish and modify reasonable rules, regulations, and policies and to amend such rules, regulations, and policies, including standards of performance and conduct, from time to time, but only after providing thirty (30) days’ notice to the Union and allowing for consultation with MIT prior to the establishment of the rule, regulation, or policy;
H. To alter, extend, or discontinue existing equipment, facilities, and location(s) of operations;
I. To determine the academic calendar, including the designation of MIT holidays and recess periods;
J. To subcontract all or any portion of operations;
K. To select all insurance carriers and to change carriers from time to time, as long as all benefits are equal or better;
L. To take such action as is necessary to maintain MIT’s efficiency and effectiveness, including determining the means, methods, personnel, budgetary procedures, and financial procedures by which MIT’s programs, services, and operations are to be conducted; and
M. To take all necessary actions to carry out MIT’s mission in emergencies, such as a public health emergency, attack, extreme weather, or other natural disaster.
Decisions regarding who is taught, what is taught, how it is taught, and who does the teaching involve academic judgment and shall be made at the sole discretion of MIT.
Other questions of academic judgment and decision making and student issues shall remain in MIT’s sole discretion; MIT has no obligation to bargain over them. These include but are not limited to judgments and decisions regarding:
A. All matters affecting student admissions;
B. Any evaluations and determinations of employees’ progress as students, including but not limited to the completion of degree requirements;
C. Research methodology and materials;
D. Academic standards;
E. All matters involving obtaining, maintaining, and administering external grants and contracts from federal or state government or private entities, including application, selection, funding, administration, usage, accountability, and termination;
F. The creation, elimination, or modification of courses and curricula;
G. Matters affecting instructional methods;
H. The content of courses, instructional materials, and the nature and form of assignments required, including examinations and other work;
I. Class and section size;
J. Grading policies and practices;
K. All other academic policies, procedures, rules, and regulations in regard to employees’ status as students, including but not limited to all questions of academic standing and intellectual integrity, as well as any matter related to determining or setting academic requirements or to academic progress in an MIT educational program;
L. All tuition and fees for all programs in which employees are based; and
M. All matters affecting financial aid.
MIT recognizes the exclusive right of the Union to represent employees on wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. However, MIT shall continue from time to time to appoint, to involve, and to recognize graduate students on departmental, program, school, college, and university committees, bodies, and tasks forces to provide input about MIT matters, although nothing in this Agreement shall constitute a requirement to do so. MIT shall continue to provide academic adjustments, accommodations, and assistance to individual graduate students at its discretion. These practices shall not be deemed to conflict with the bargaining relationship, and the participation of students in this manner shall not be deemed to be collective bargaining negotiations or to modify, add to, or change the Agreement.
Any exercise of management rights shall be consistent with the terms and conditions of this Agreement. No action taken by MIT with respect to a management right shall be subject to the grievance and arbitration procedures in this Agreement unless the exercise of such right violated an expressly written provision of this Agreement. To the extent MIT maintains that a particular action by the Institute is covered by this Article, it shall not decline to process a grievance solely on that basis. MIT may, however, raise this Article as a defense as part of processing any grievance or during any arbitration.
The above enumeration of management rights is not exhaustive and does not exclude other management rights not specified above. MIT, in not exercising any function hereby reserved to it in this Article, or in exercising any such function in a particular way, will not be deemed to have waived its right to exercise such function or preclude the Institute from exercising the same in some other way.