Category: Florida Legislation

Faculty Shared Governance

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“’Shared governance’ is much revered by faculty, but it adds vastly to administrative costs and stifles innovation and change.  Shared governance is a byproduct of academic tenure, where faculty members with lifetime appointments face little consequence from trying, often successfully, to obstruct changes that
might reduce their power or influence or increase their teaching  load.“

— Vedder and Denhart, Ten Principles of Higher Education Reform (2011, p. 16)

This background reading was circulated to meeting participants prior to last
week’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Higher Education meeting in St. Petersburg. Read More →

Faculty Address Higher Ed Task Force

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Task force gets report on higher ed challenges

By BRENT KALLESTAD, Associated Press

Published: Monday, June 11, 2012 at 6:29 p.m.

Two veteran faculty members cautioned a newly formed task force on Monday against changing the state’s higher education system simply because a businessman – in this case, Gov. Rick Scott – believes it needs to show more value. Read More →

Beyond Wisconsin and Here in Florida

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As in our own 2010 Gubernatorial election, yesterday’s Wisconsin recall election results seem to underscore the Perverted Golden Rule: “Those with the gold make the rules.” We can take some cold comfort in knowing that it took a substantial spending advantage to achieve these results. Estimates heard in recent days put the spending advantage for Walker and allies between 3:1 and 7.5:1. There is also encouragement in that Walker’s allies lost control of the Wisconsin Senate in yesterday’s elections. Although Wisconsin is 1000+ miles away, events there and here are part of a national pattern. For a good concise summary focused on higher education funding aspects of that pattern, see: Read More →

Highlights and Comments from the May, 2012 FSU Faculty Poll

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An expanded edition of the report on the May, 2012 FSU Faculty Poll is now
available at the www.uff-fsu.org web site,
or via direct link at:

https://uff-fsu.org/art/May2012FacPollResultsAll-Post.pdf

This edition includes hundreds of faculty comments that help to clarify and
elaborate on the meaning of the quantitative results released last week.  The
quantitative results appear in both editions. Read More →