Full-time professors at Eastern Michigan University ended a strike on Wednesday after an overnight bargaining session with university administrators. The session did not resolve the dispute but did result in an agreement to hire an impartial outside “fact finder” to conduct hearings and recommend a compromise, mainly on salary and health-care issues.

The professors walked out on September 1 (The Chronicle, September 4) and had continued to strike through the first few days of classes (The Chronicle, September 7). The university left the bargaining table last week and said it would return to negotiations only when the professors returned to the classroom.

The union told the administration last week that it would end the strike if the university consented to binding arbitration, but Eastern Michigan refused that offer. Instead, it proposed that the two parties hire a fact finder who would suggest nonbinding solutions to the disagreement.

The professors suspended their strike for 24 hours on Tuesday for the bargaining session that arrived at the agreement to hire the fact finder (The Chronicle, September 12). Word of the deal was described in news releases issued by the union and the university.