by Nick Shrubsole | Mar 10, 2022 | Leadership
SB 7044: Postsecondary Education This bill has passed the House. It would require a 5 year listing of books made public for each class as well as require public colleges and universities to seek a different accreditation agency each cycle. This bill includes the post tenure review language from my previous updates. It is headed to the desk of the governor for his signature.
HB 1197: Employee Organizations Representing Public Employees-This is the draft bill from last year that failed to pass which would require public employee unions to have over 50% membership for certification but it would exclude police and fire departments. It has passed the House and it is still being held in committee in the Senate. The session ends tomorrow so if it doesn’t move out of committee by tomorrow evening the bill will be defeated.
In Solidarity,
Robert Cassanello,
UFF-UCF, President
by Nick Shrubsole | Mar 8, 2022 | Leadership
SB 7044: Postsecondary Education This bill would require a 5 year listing of books made public for each class as well as require public colleges and universities to seek a different accreditation agency each cycle. This bill which included the post tenure review amendment was passed by the Florida Senate yesterday and is now being considered by the Florida House of Representatives. The bill would give power to the Board of Governors to institute a Post Tenure Review system. The language of the amendment is below:
(b)The Board of Governors may adopt a regulation requiring each tenured state university faculty member to undergo a comprehensive post-tenure review every 5 years. The board may include other considerations in the regulation, but the regulation must address:
1. Accomplishments and productivity;
2. Assigned duties in research, teaching, and service;
3. Performance metrics, evaluations, and ratings; and
4. Recognition and compensation considerations, as well as improvement plans and consequences for underperformance.
Should this bill pass the House and be signed by the governor it would mean that the Board of Governors will produce a post tenure review policy (or more than one) that conforms to the legislation that the various colleges and universities will have to adopt.
HB 1197: Employee Organizations Representing Public Employees-This is the draft bill from last year that failed to pass which would require public employee unions to have over 50% membership for certification but it would exclude police and fire departments. It has passed the House and is being considered by the Senate. It is still not out of committee in the Senate. Should this bill pass and become law, public employee unions in Florida will have to maintain 50% or more membership to be certified, except for police, firefighters and correctional employees. Our union is a little bit more than 33% currently.
In Solidarity,
Robert Cassanello,
UFF-UCF, President
by Nick Shrubsole | Mar 6, 2022 | Leadership
Greetings all, there have been some important legislative updates since last I reported.
Post Tenure Review Amendment
SB 7044: Postsecondary Education. This bill came out of committee and was recently introduced in the legislature, there is also a House version [HB 7051: Postsecondary Education]. This bill requires colleges and universities to keep a public record for 5 years of books assigned and any other instructional material for each class. Additionally it requires public colleges and universities to seek accreditation from a different accreditation agency every five years.
Yesterday afternoon Senator Manny Diaz, Jr. of Miami-Dade County introduced an amendment to the bill that would give power to the Board of Governors to institute a Post Tenure Review system. The language of the amendment is below:
(b) The Board of Governors may adopt a regulation requiring each tenured state university faculty member to undergo a comprehensive post-tenure review every 5 years. The board may include other considerations in the regulation, but the regulation must address:
- Accomplishments and productivity;
1.2. Assigned duties in research, teaching, and service;
3. Performance metrics, evaluations, and ratings; and
4. Recognition and compensation considerations, as well as improvement plans and consequences for underperformance.
I do not know yet where this amendment is in the process as it was only introduced Thursday afternoon. The amendment was temporarily postponed and will be brought up again today sometime. Both the House and Senate versions of this bill have been through a second reading in both chambers, a third reading would move the legislation to a vote by the full body. At the moment only the Senate version is considering this post tenure review amendment.
I will keep you updated on this legislation.
SB 520: Public Records and Public Meetings-this bill which will exempt college and university presidential searches from public records laws was passed in the Senate on February 10. The House version (HB 703: Pub. Rec. and Meetings/Postsecondary Education Executive Search) is on its third reading and is expected to receive a full vote in the chamber shortly.
HB 1197: Employee Organizations Representing Public Employees-This is the draft bill from last year that failed to pass which would require public employee unions to have over 50% membership for certification but it would exclude police and fire departments. It is moving into a third reading in the House. The Senate version (SB 1458: Employee Organizations) is still in various committees.
HB 7: Individual Freedom & SB 148: Individual Freedom These companion bills would prohibit “subjecting individuals to specified concepts under certain circumstances constitutes discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin; revises provisions relating to required instruction; prohibits instructional materials reviewers from recommending instructional materials that contain any matter that contradicts certain principles; requires DOE to review school district professional development systems for compliance with certain provisions of law.” The House passed this version of the bill and is moving through committees in the Senate.
HB 1557: Parental Rights in Education passed the House which would prohibit classroom discussions about “sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels; requires school districts to notify parents of healthcare services.” The Senate version of this bill SB 1834: Parental Rights in Education is moving through committees and will probably be voted on by the full Senate shortly. These bills apply only to public school districts, not colleges and universities.
New Podcast Episode
We’ve released a new Podcast episode, “Episode 11 Welcome to the UniverCity or Have Universities Become the New Factories?” I spoke with Professor Davarian L. Baldwin, Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut. He recently published the book In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities with Bold Type Books. We spoke about the impact of how local universities expand into downtown centers and how universities have transformed into what he has termed a UniverCity.
Robert Cassanello
UFF-UCF, President
by Nick Shrubsole | Dec 8, 2021 | Leadership
New UCF Draft Travel Policies
There are 5 new draft policies that have been introduced. There are two on travel one to conform to FLA Legislation and the other about use of Concur services to book travel. Please look them over if you travel for work or research and then decide if you wish to provide a comment.
https://policies.ucf.edu/rfc.asp The place to comment is on the right hand part of this page the links below are the draft travel policies.
2-903.3, International Travel
https://policies.ucf.edu/rfc/2-903.3%20DRAFT%20International%20Travel.pdf
And
3-205.3 DRAFT Reimbursement for Travel Expenses
https://policies.ucf.edu/rfc/3-205.3%20DRAFT%20Reimbursement%20for%20Travel%20Expenses.pdf
If you wish to comment you have until December 16.
UF and Academic Freedom
Some of you have been emailing me about the scandal at the University of Florida concerning the pressure and influence the administration has taken in the freedom of professor to serve as expert witnesses and other state related research. The UF Faculty Senate is engaging in some research there to uncover the extent of these policies. https://www.highereddive.com/news/u-of-florida-stokes-climate-stifling-academic-freedom-faculty-senate-says/611095/
Also a group of professors from UF have organized into the Coalition for Academic Freedom to protest the measures taken against an education professor who used the words “critical” and “race” in their syllabus. You can read about it here.
https://www.alligator.org/article/2021/12/faculty-coalition-speaks-out?fbclid=IwAR3chZZEvlRsAgA8ENJ200Kwko8YTXvEUzLRN220ipZX_18C4BX-Df3nL58
You should know academic freedom is a right contained in the UCF Collective Bargaining Agreement and if you recall at the November 4th UCF Faculty Senate Meeting Senate Chair Joe Harrington confirmed that both Interim Provost Michael Johnson and VP of Compliance and Risk both confirmed that UCF has never stood in the way of stopping professors to act as expert witnesses even if it is against the state. You can see that here https://youtu.be/_S3jDdaR6zE?t=5661
FLA Legislative Updates
As I have reported the Georgia Legislature is considering a bill to reform tenure and now the South Carolina Legislature has introduced a bill to abolish tenure at public colleges in the state and replace that with a 5 year contract that can be renewed. https://www.highereddive.com/news/south-carolina-lawmakers-propose-ending-tenure-at-states-public-colleges/610483/
There still is no Tenure Draft Bill in the Florida Legislature with the intent to abolish or reform the conditions of tenure. At this point in the legislative calendar it is more unlikely to happen, however it is still possible for a lawmaker to introduce a new draft bill after the 2022 Legislative Session begins. I will keep you posted on this. If you want to hear about about the threat to tenure you can listen to the chapter podcast about it here titled “Episode 8 The Threat to Tenure or It’s Already a Five Alarm Fire People.” It covers the recent history of the threats to tenure since 1998. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Dawq-PlLE
The draft bills we have been following for you have not moved since I last reported on them. They have been filed so all or some can be taken up by the Legislature when they start meeting again in January of 2022. They are SB 666, HB 6077, SJR 192, SB 520, and SB 242/HB 57.
In Solidarity,
Robert Cassanello,
UFF-UCF, President
by Nick Shrubsole | Dec 2, 2021 | Leadership
I am here to communicate that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among faculty and employees at UCF. I know at the last BOT meeting you spoke to and received data about the impact of the Great Resignation at UCF. I know we are expected to act and feel that the pandemic is over, but for many of us it doesn’t feel like it is over and for those that might not feel that way can’t ignore the scars from the last two years.
I am here because we have concerns about how UCF is spending funds. UCF has only spent 31.8% of HEERF (Higher Ed Emergency Relief Funding from the Federal Government); they are sitting on $112,364,913.77 of unspent funding.
Some of that funding is set aside to provide relief for employees during the pandemic. What we are seeing is UCF sitting on funds. This financial behavior has a long history of going back at least a decade. In years past the legislature punished UCF for stockpiling money for a raining day while hurricane force winds were blowing around us and they later stepped in to force UCF to spend down those funds.
More recently we saw UCF squirrel away funding and used said funding to build Trevor Colbourn Hall, an act which produced a financial scandal and brought down a president at UCF.
Sherry Andrews, Associate General Counsel at UCF, told us in a June bargaining meeting that UCF had a bad habit…a policy of making internal loans that weren’t really loans. She said this created a problem or a mess with their budget they had still not resolved.
Instead of using these federal COVID funds in improving instruction, or provide the means for faculty and employees to get through the pandemic, UCF is instead sitting on this funding.
What UCF employees need is direct relief as we are exiting the second year of the pandemic. The President and Provost of UCF have showered UCF Faculty and employees with praise and we have heard how proud they are of us, but talk is cheap. This funding can be used to support and help sustain faculty and employees, this was the intent of the funding and we expect UCF to use some of this federal funding directly on employees.
Many of us including my own household have taken deferring our student loans during the pandemic and that ends in January, let’s not forget the rising costs of goods and services, housing, home ownership all have gone up during the past year.
You rewarded the president for his hard work over the past year with a $197.000 bonus, I am sure that went a long way to make his household whole since the pandemic. None of us in this room and no one in the union wants President Cartwright to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past this coming holiday.
Higher Ed Emergency Relief Funding can be spent on direct aid to faculty and employees at UCF and we expect UCF to do so.
by Nick Shrubsole | Feb 4, 2021 | Leadership
UFF’s work to advocate on behalf of our members and higher education now pivots to the 2021 Florida Legislature. In fact, this work began shortly after the November election when local chapters were supplied with a template and encouraged to send letters to all elected and reelected legislators, congratulating them and introducing their UFF chapter representatives. We see this as the first step towards building healthy, long-term relationships with our legislators, regardless of party.
UFF’s Government Relations Committee’s structure and programs will be expanding and evolving this year. In addition to the statewide GR Committee chaired by Matthew Lata, there will be several subgroups and working groups coordinated by President Karen Morian. Additionally, we will be assisting the chapter GR Committees with their lobbying efforts and local work by providing assistance and resources.
*If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out to your local chapter leaders.
Our top state legislative priority, as always, is funding. We hope to preserve the 2020 budget that they passed last year, and which funds the state through the end of June 2021.
We are currently watching several pieces of proposed legislation of particular interest to UFF and Higher Education. Some include ideas and changes we have seen before:
STATE GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE
UFF will be monitoring prospective changes to the State Group Health Insurance plan. As this affects our university faculty, UFF will work in partnership with the FL AFL-CIO and other public-sector unions whose members would be impacted by any such changes.
FLORIDA RETIREMENT SYSTEM
UFF will be monitoring prospective changes to the FRS, including language which would close the defined benefit option to new hires which could destabilize the system. UFF will be working in partnership with the FL AFL-CIO and other public-sector unions retirement security options for all public employees. This will be a costly and disastrous change to one of the country’s strongest retirement systems.
SB 220 is an attempt to remove state college and university president searches from the oversight required by Florida’s Sunshine Laws. UFF opposes this bill as these decisions should be made transparently. We believe the lack of transparency opens up this process to all manner of corruption. Rep. Ramon Alexander (D-Tallahassee) is expected to again sponsor this in the House. As it takes a 2/3 vote to remove proceedings from the Sunshine, we will push to stop this in the Senate (again) this year. We will need your engagement and testimony to keep searches in the sunshine, not in the shadows.
HB 233/SB 264 would require an annual assessment of the “members of the college community” (including universities and colleges), asking people to reveal their political perspectives and beliefs, without indicating how this information would be used. There are several reasons to oppose this bill: it is an unnecessary expense, it has not been statistically valid in other states (and yet they reference those surveys to support the need here in Florida, it would open up the possibility of a political litmus test tied to employment (last year conservative Senator Rob Bradley likened it to McCarthyism and urged that it be voted down every time it came back), it includes language which would allow students to film faculty in class and disseminate the film online, but has no reciprocity for faculty. In addition to our Tallahassee leaders, our UFF-FAU and UFF-FGCU leaders have done important work by meeting with their legislators and providing them with important information.
SB 78 is a government overreach/union-busting bill that would require public employee union members to re-join the union every time we have a new CBA or every three years. It also inserts the institutions’ HR departments between members and the union, requiring them to verify with the member that they did, indeed, intend to join their union. As of now, there is no timeline for how long HR can take to process a renewal form, problematizing an individual’s active membership status and raising questions about whether they are covered by the union insurance policy or for grievance purposes. UFF and FEA made a huge impact in speaking in committee against this bill, reinforced by thousands of emails from members opposing the bill. For now, it has been “temporarily postponed” but we will need to stay engaged.
HB 553/SB 176 The Graduate Assistant fee waiver bill is one we have been working on for a number of years. These fees have risen exponentially over the last decade, rendering meaningless the hard-won tuition waivers and stipend increases our union has secured. Thanks to Senator Cruz and House Representative Goff-Marcil for sponsoring this bill. Its path begins in the Senate Education committee. Our Graduate Assistants United members have been reaching out to legislators and raising awareness on the plight of many grad workers who have been forced to choose between childcare, medicine, and fees. We have reason to hope that some version of this will pass this year, but we must fight for this to be a priority.
HB 281/SB 0052 is a large post-secondary education bill, most of which UFF has no position on. However, it does include some bonus-pay-for-new hires language which may conflict with existing collective bargaining agreements. It also provides public funding for private dual enrollment high school students to attend public college. We are not in favor of either of these sections.
HB 6001 is a Guns-on-Campus Bill (UFF Senate has passed a resolution opposing this.) This bill does not have a lot of support in the leadership, nor does it have a Senate companion bill.
To stay up to date, follow UFF on social media:
Facebook: @UnitedFacultyofFlorida
Twitter: @UnitedFacultyFL
www.myuff.org
OR sign up to track bills at:
https://myfloridahouse.gov/
https://flsenate.gov/
OR follow the Legislature yourself on the Florida Channel: https://thefloridachannel.org/
In solidarity,
Karen Morian, UFF President
Jaffar Ali Shahul-Hameed, UFF First Vice President
and Candi Churchill, UFF Executive Director
UFF has been well represented in committee meetings by our Tallahassee members: Martin Balinsky, Matthew Lata, Vincenza Berardo, Ben Serber, Jordan Scott, and Krystal Williams from UFF-TCC, UFF-FSU, FSU-GAU and FAMU-GAU.
We have had assistance from our Executive Director Emeritus and current UFF consultant (Marshall Ogletree) and our colleagues in the FEA Public Policy and Advocacy department (Cathy Boehme and Yale Olenick).
Our sincerest thanks to all.
FEA | 213 S. Adams St. Tallahassee, FL 32301 | 850.201.2800 | Fax 850.222.1840
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