UFF-USF

UFF/USF Chapter Meeting
December 14, 2007
CDB’s on Fowler Avenue, Tampa

In attendance: J. Martin, B. Welker, A. Shapiro, P. Terry, S. Wohlmuth, N. Kwon, K. de la Peña McCook, R. Weatherford, M. Klisch, M. Kaplan, S. Tauber, J. Noonan, G. McColm, S. Dorn, R. Evans, H. Hechiche.

Adoption of the Agenda: The agenda was adopted as distributed.

Consultation Update: Summer 2008: the administration really has no what is actually happening with the funding situation. One suggestion: Students should be made aware of the fact that the number of enrolled will affect whether classes make or are cancelled so that they may lobby each other, etc. Regional campus status: Sarasota and Lakeland have been told to prepare for separate accreditation; experience has shown that this means more service, service, service as much committee work must be done for this to happen. There was a discussion of some of the issues with the potential thread of a lawsuit against a former USF employee who made allegations of financial misconduct. (There was no response of substance from administration on this last item.)

College of Nursing: Sherman met with members of College of Nursing administration on the issue of faculty assignments on December 13, 2007. One of the problems is the fact that assignments in the college are not transparent because CON combines clinical and classroom teaching with research and service. Team teaching makes the situation even less transparent. Some nursing faculty have to keep up with certification. Due to extenuating circumstances, including the fact that hospitals change their situations with no notice, assignments come very late.

Regional Campus Work Group: The group as a whole will meet to figure out action items. Each member will return to their campuses, meet with their campus work group to make sure that the group agrees with the action items. Then the work will begin.
Reports:

Bargaining: K. Glover will be gone until February. Welker explained the bargaining team’s reaction to administration’s ‘summer pay if the course doesn’t reach full capacity’ proposal.

Grievances: The holiday clock stops on Monday, December 17 through January 7. Phil Smith will substitute for K. Glover before Glover returns in February.

Membership: The discussion on membership ideas centered on a project idea to hire graduate students in applied anthropology to investigate how UFF/USF functions and could therefore gain new members. Other ideas were discussed as well, including – in the area of membership development – a workshop on the switch from ORP to FRS.

Communications: G. McColm is preparing for his sabbatical. Although he will be in town, he will not write for UFF/USF in any capacity. He will post for anyone who does write for the chapter, though.

Elections: J. Martin, S. Tauber, and P. Terry volunteered to be the Elections Committee. This means that Martin will not be running for secretary of the chapter again.

Treasurer: The winter rebate check just arrived.

Political Action: Weatherford distributed a La Gaceta article concerning the victory of a candidate for the office of city commissioner in Lakeland, who embraced his union support, despite being in a staunchly conservative area. This was Roy Weatherford’s last meeting as USF/UFF’s Political Action chair.

Good of the Order: R. Weatherford distributed a Charter Amendment Petition that would put a ballot entitled, “Create Seven County Commission Districts of Separate Areas of Equal Population,” up for vote in the November county elections. He urged all to make multiple copies and to sign one, mail it in, and give copies to all acquaintances to be signed and mailed in.

There was discussion on the Dick Beard Parking Garage.

Motion was made, seconded and passed for the chapter to send, “in solidarity”, a $200 check to the Florida Orchestra. The Board of the Orchestra has agreed to triple-match all donations during the month of December. The two sides have just settled a contract dispute.

The group was reminded to VOTE NO ON THE JANUARY 29^th PROPERTY TAX PROPOSAL.

The meeting schedule for January is January 11^th in Tampa and January 25^th IN LAKELAND.

Respectfully submitted by Jana Martin.

 

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