For Immediate Release

October 26, 2020

Frederick E. Kowal, Ph.D., has been re-elected to a fourth term as UUP president.

At its Oct. 23 virtual meeting, the union’s statewide Executive Board unanimously elected Kowal to a three-year term. Statewide Secretary-Treasurer Jeriluanne O’Bryan-Losee was also re-elected; she won her second three-year term. Kowal and O’Bryan-Losee were running unopposed, which enabled the Board to approve their re-election.

Union delegates, who usually elect the union’s leaders in person, will elect a statewide membership development officer and eight Executive Board members in a special mail-ballot election without in-person voting. Paper ballots will be mailed out to delegates Oct. 28; ballots will be counted Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.

Delegates approved the mail-in election at a special virtual delegate assembly in September. The election was set to take place at the 2020 Spring Delegate Assembly; that event was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kowal, of Warnerville, Schoharie County, is a professor of Political Science and Native American Studies at SUNY Cobleskill. O’Bryan-Losee of Sherburne, Chenango County is the director of Science and Technology Programs (CSTEP & STEP) at SUNY Morrisville.

UUP is the nation's largest higher education union, with more than 42,000 academic and professional faculty and retirees. UUP members work at 29 New York State-operated campuses, including SUNY’s public teaching hospitals in Brooklyn, Stony Brook and Syracuse.