ter
Noon, SOC 304
1. Agenda/introductions
2. Membership
3. Michael Bérubé
4. Bargaining
5. UFF Senate
6. Other reports (Grievance, Faculty Senate, Political Action, Communications)
7. Other business
8. For the good of the order
the provost’s presentation to the Florida Board of Governors earlier this month, retention has been on my brain (or maybe my brain drain). The UFF-USF bargaining team has wanted to change and improve the sabbatical program at USF and has put several proposals on the table. I have usually thought of sabbatical programs as a way to boost research programs. Sabbaticals are not crucial to disciplines where large grants are accessible and in years when the hit rate is above "miniscule" — those who can earn grants from NIH, NSF, or other agencies can reduce their teaching through the grants, when well-written grants are likely to be funded.
But not all well-written grants are funded, especially in years when federal research funding is cut (as it has been recently), and there are many disciplines outside the main federal funding routes (or at least those that can reduce teaching). USF faculty are beginning to win those types of awards, which is always good news: Anthropologist Kevin Yelvington recently won a Guggenheim, and Riccardo Marchi won a fellowship from the Getty last year.
But those awards are and always will be rare. Sabbatical programs are crucial for the disciplines outside large funding opportunities: faculty in English, history, linguistics, sociology, fine arts, and other fields need sabbatical opportunities to push their research forward. For decades, USF has languished with an anemic sabbatical program. With a tenured and tenure-track faculty group of around 1000, the UFF-USF bargaining unit usually has around 15 full-pay, one-semester sabbatical slots each year. That’s shameful, if we pretend to be a Carnegie Research-Extensive university.
It is also a missed opportunity. The structure of the sabbatical program makes it a retention program as well: if you take a sabbatical, you must stay at USF for the following year (or repay the entire salary for the sabbatical). It’s one of those programs that not only is a real benefit for faculty, but one that boosts the morale of anyone receiving a sabbatical. After all, faculty members who are on sabbatical have a period of time in which they are released from all other duties to focus on the scholarship they love. I have <em>never</em> heard a colleague coming back from sabbatical say, "Gee, I never should have taken this. I felt worse at the end than at the beginning."
In essence, a one-term, full-pay sabbatical is a 25% bonus that requires the recipient to stay at USF for two years (the year of the sabbatical and the following year). And a full-year, half-pay sabbatical in essence costs nothing to either USF or departments. If I were an administrator worried about retention, I’d want to give out sabbaticals like candy to productive faculty. Well, not like candy: you can’t give a sabbatical to everyone in a department in a single year. But sabbaticals are still the least expensive option for retention.
Federal district court judge Patricia Seitz has struck down the state’s “Travel Act” from last year that interfered with faculty who used non-state money to travel to Cuba and several other countries. This was a federal lawsuit sponsored by the ACLU and where several UFF members were plaintiffs. There is a separate state lawsuit that UFF filed that is working its way through the process as well, and I am hopeful from this decision that at least one of those lawsuits will settle in the issue in favor of academic freedom.
Attendance.
There were 9 people in attendance.
Agenda & Introductions.
Agenda approved and introductions made.
Minutes.
Effective this fall, minutes will be posted prior to the publication of the subsequent UFF Biweekly; they will consist of an enumeration of agenda items, announcements appropriate for the minutes, and motions with the resolution of those motions.
Faculty Senate.
UFF will continue to be on the Faculty Senate agenda, and henceforth the Faculty Senate shall be on the UFF/USF Chapter agenda. Discussion.
Membership.
There will be a special membership effort during the week of Sept. 22 – 26; the highlight will be Michael Berube’s visit on Sept. 23. There will be other efforts during the year.
Labor Day.
The UFF/USF Chapter will participate in the AFL-CIO picnic on Labor Day.
Surveys.
Results of the July survey are summarized in the upcoming Uncommon Sense. Discussion of other surveys.
Reports.
Meetings in the Fall Semester.
Subsequent meetings will be on alternate Fridays in SOC 304. We will arrange to meet on Dec. 12. There will be meetings on other campuses on intermediate Fridays.
Meeting Adjourned.
These minutes respectfully submitted by G. McColm on August 23, 2008.
Draft agenda, UFF-USF chapter meeting
July 25, 2008, noon
CDB’s (51st and Fowler Avenues, Tampa)
United Faculty of Florida is representing several faculty members who filed individual grievances July 11 in response to the reorganization of Academic Affairs. The grievants are from the colleges of Arts and Sciences and Business Administration.
On June 12, the provost announced that he was moving entire units between colleges and creating a new college out of FMHI and several departments from Arts and Sciences. The grievances assert that the reorganization occurred without either notice to the grievants or an opportunity for the grievants to provide input. The grievances assert that a unilateral reorganization of colleges in this manner violates Section 5.4 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (on-line as a PDF), which reads: “On the part of the Administration, Academic Responsibility implies a commitment actively to foster within the University a climate favorable to responsible exercise of freedom, by adherence to principles of shared governance, which require that in the development of academic policies and processes, the professional judgments of employees are of primary importance.”
A resolution approved at a chapter meeting this spring opposed unilateral reorganizations that went beyond what was necessary for budget cuts, and the chapter notified both the administration and the Board of Trustees that reorganizations required more discussion and consultation and that the process of reorganization should be separated from the timeline for budget cuts. A letter to the provost this spring from the majority of chairs in Arts and Sciences expressed parallel concerns and made a similar request for more measured deliberations about reorganization.
Instead of responding to the concerns of CAS chairs and the chapter, the provost announced reorganization as a fait accompli June 12, without giving the entire faculty in affected colleges an opportunity to provide input on either the specifics or the general shape of the reorganization.
“Only a minority of faculty in the affected colleges thinks that both the process and the results of reorganization were appropriate,” chapter president Sherman Dorn said. “At least a substantial plurality of faculty thinks that either the process or the results are inappropriate.
“At a great university, faculty are at the heart of crucial decisions about the future. An administrator who acts as if he or she believes in benevolent despotism only increases the cynicism and erodes the morale of the faculty. In a time of severe budget cuts, the University of South Florida cannot afford either.”
While more UFF members in the affected colleges might want to participate, the collective bargaining agreement requires that grievances be filed within 30 days of a contractual violation. July 11 represented the “safe date” deadline after the reorganization’s announcement on June 12, and grievances were filed though many who might want to join were out of town.
The next collective bargaining session between UFF-USF and the USF Board of Trustees will be July 11, 3-5 pm, in SVC 2080.
Draft agenda, UFF-USF chapter meeting
June 27, 2008, 12 noon
EDU 257 (on Tampa campus!)
1. Introductions/ agenda
2. Layoffs and realignment
3. Membership
4. Bargaining
5. Communications
6. Grievances
7. Other business
8. For the good of the order