A labor dispute involving tenured educators and those on the tenure track is playing out at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

Members of the Faculty Association union are carrying picket signs outside the 20,000-student campus' main entrances, and about a half dozen of them are demonstrating outside the building housing the chancellor's office.

That union took to picketing Thursday after failing to reach a contract deal.

University spokesman Rod Sievers (SEE'-verz) says administrators believe they can fill the classroom voids and that students should see what he calls minimal impact.

Not everyone in the Faculty Association is taking part. A splinter group unhappy with the union's bargaining says it owes students to stay on the job instead of joining what it called "the noisy minority."