By Professor Jennifer Proffitt, UFF-FSU President
We Want to Hear from You!
We are gearing up for bargaining, and there are two key ways to get involved coming up in the next month or so:
One way is the UFF-FSU faculty poll: Please be on the lookout for the UFF-FSU poll in April. Of course, I will send you multiple email reminders once the poll is ready to go, and please remind your colleagues to take the poll as well. Our poll is extremely important because it helps us to determine faculty needs and bargaining priorities. All faculty members are encouraged to participate. Topics will include the Presidential search, Specialized Faculty, prestige award raises, and much more!
Another way is to attend the UFF-FSU luncheon on legislative and bargaining updates on March 31 at 12:30 in the Oglesby Union Florida Room. The luncheon is open to all faculty, free for members. Please RSVP to me if you’d like to attend.
For those of you who are UFF members, please send in your ballots for the UFF-FSU elections by 3:00 pm March 27th.
Consultation Scheduled
Our next consultation will be with Interim President Stokes, Vice President McRorie and other administrators May 14.
Legislative Update
In terms of the legislature, as you know, FRS reform is on the agenda. There’s a bill in the Senate, and there’s one on the way in the House. We are also monitoring issues such as potential changes to healthcare benefits (including increased co-pays) as Governor Scott’s budget proposal indicated; the SUS Performance Funding Model implementation; a textbook bill that, among other things, would mandate that we indicate what textbooks we plan to use 14 days before course registration opens and that we’d use the same textbook for at least three years (not sure how that would work when publishers and bookstores force us to use new editions) [see http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2014/0355/BillText/c1/PDF]; and, the implementation of accreditation for online courses offered by for-profit entities.