Archive for May 19th, 2008

Faculty senate special meeting (update)

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Wednesday at 1 pm, in the Westside Conference room E, the faculty senate will be meeting in special session. Last Thursday, Faculty Senate President Michael Barber sent the following e-mail to faculty senators:

Dear Senators,

As you know, President Genshaft will be addressing the USF Faculty Senate on Wednesday May 21 at 1 pm at Westside Conference Center Room E (To find Room E take the covered walkway passed the entrance to rooms A-B-C, to the set of double glass doors). I understand that the President has also requested that Deans also attend that meeting so that all might hear first hand what steps she intends to take in response to the institution’s budget situation.

After President Genshaft’s presentation and discussion, if the Faculty Senate would like to continue to meet to discuss the President’s plan we may do so. The room is reserved until 5 PM. However, our administrative specialist, Ann Pipkins, will be on vacation, so we will not have minutes from the previous Faculty Senate meeting to approve, nor will minutes of any discussion we might have be recorded, unless we have a volunteer. But if it is the will of the Faculty Senate to remain to discuss the President’s plan after she and the other administration representatives leave, I will be pleased to preside over that session.

Sincerely,

Michael Barber
President, USF Faculty Senate

The USF Board of Trustees will be starting its own special meeting (PDF of agenda) starting at 3:30 in the Marshall Center Ballroom.

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Background on UFF-USF resolution on reorganization

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Last Friday, the chapter approved the following resolution (which went through rephrasing overnight Friday and early Saturday):

The USF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida strongly recommends the immediate suspension of all efforts in progress to reorganize the colleges and subunits thereof pending further deliberation by the faculty and the substantial involvement of the faculty in considering, making and implementing any plans regarding such reorganization.

The reorganization specifically was not on the agenda. The issue came up in discussion of the budget cuts, and the initial motion was made by a faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). The discussion focused on the judgment that reorganization was being tossed about in far too rushed a manner. As far as I recall, there was no discussion of administrative intentions, but as several dozen CAS chairs had noted in a letter to the administration several weeks ago, there was a clear sense that addressing the current budget crisis should be done separately from larger organizational issues, and that a rush to change based on the end of the fiscal year would cause considerable harm to USF’s academics.

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