IN THIS ISSUE

Retaining Faculty

Teacher recruitment and faculty retention are national problems, and USF is not immune. In the 4 August 2022 Biweekly, we observed that over the previous five years (at least), many employees hired by USF departed within a few years. We had observed similar attrition in 2015, when we tracked the 2009 cohort over the previous five years.

Faculty Retention at USF. We look at retention from 2021 to 2023, and find that attrition is affecting all the major categories of positions. For details, see below or click here.

The USF Board of Trustees has just approved the long-expected regulation on Post-Tenure Faculty Review (and here are the slides presented to the Board). This violates the contract, but litigation will take a while, and in the meantime, here is the union's advice on dealing with post tenure review. Speaking of the contract...

Workshop on the Contract - Especially, the grievance process. Tomorrow, at 12:30 pm after the chapter meeting, on USF Tampa in MSC 3711. For details, see below

If you are not a union member, please... ...(the form connects automatically to the eDues form, so you will want to have your banking info or checkbook information handy). We are stronger standing together.

Reminder. Effective Saturday, July 1, UFF members no longer pay dues by paycheck dues deduction. But in order to remain in the union, you must pay dues - which are 1% of salary. If you are a union member and have shifted to eDues, thank you. If you are a union member and you have not shifted to eDues, please get the "I'm sticking with my union" eDues email and shift today.

The law says that being a union member means being a dues-paying member, so get on eDues today.

For more information, click here. If you are having difficulties, please contact the Membership Committee.

Faculty Retention at USF

We look at all the employees who were in the UFF USF Bargaining Unit (UFF members and non-members alike) in 2021 and see how many of them were still in the Bargaining Unit in 2022 and then how many of those were in the Bargaining Unit in 2023. That's how many were continuously here and still around two years later. Since employees hired for the academic year are typically entered on August 7, we look at the Bargaining Unit reports immediately subsequent to August 7 for each of these three years.

The entire Bargaining Unit. The two bars at left represent the 1,575 employees in the Unit as of 2021. In the center, the orange bar is 1,588 employees in the Bargaining Unit as of 7 August 2022 while the blue bar is 1,405 employees then in the Bargaining Unit who had been in the Bargaining Unit in 2021; 183 employees (12%) of those present in 2021 were no longer in the Unit after one year. At right, the orange bar is 1,643 employees in the Bargaining Unit in 2023 while the blue bar is the 1,271 employees in the Unit who had been in the Unit in both 2022 and 2021.

Altogether, 81% of the employees in the Unit in 2021 had remained in the bargaining unit continuously to 2023. But USF did a lot of hiring, for the number of employees in the Bargaining Unit had increased 4.3%: 23% of the employees in the Unit now are recent hires (although a few are probably returning to the Unit).

Caveat. This survey is an initial estimate. Employees leave the Unit and return, either because they moved to a position outside of the Unit (e.g., to and from administration) or because they left the university and returned. For example, twelve employees present in 2021 and 2023 were absent in 2022. Twelve is not very many employees, and we will assume that the number of employees leaving and returning is small enough that it will not affect the overall picture much.

We now look at some particular groups of employees.

Associate and full (and distinguished, etc.) professors. As before, the bars at left are for 2021, in the center for 2022, and at right for 2023.

Over those two years, while the number of associate and full (and up) professors in the Unit was stable, only 689 of those professors hired in 2021 were continuously in the unit as of 2023, a 14% decline.

Just the full (and higher) professors. interestingly enough, for some reason, over the last two years, the number of such professors in the Unit was somewhat more volatile. Meanwhile, over the same two years, the 393 such professors in the Unit in 2021 declined 20% to 314.

So of the 400 full (and higher) professors in the Unit as of 2023, 86 (22%) had either been promoted, hired from outside, or returned to the Unit during the previous two years.

Professors of instruction and instructors. While the number of such faculty increased 13% from 2021 to 2023, only 71% of such faculty present in 2021 stayed through 2023.

But there were a lot of new hires (and maybe returns, etc.), for the number of such faculty increased 12% so that by 2023, only 63% of such faculty had been in the Unit continuously over the previous two years.

The remaining employees in the Unit (excluding assistant professors, whose retention is a different issue - see the 10 September 2015 article on the odds of getting tenure). This group increased 29% while only 63% of those in the Bargaining Unit in 2021 remained continuously in that category over the next two years.

Amidst a lot of attrition there was a lot of expansion, and hence a lot of hiring, an interesting juxtaposition.

And now for two demographics...

Female employees have increased 5.9%, but the Unit grew, to, so the proportion of female employees in the Unit hovered around 48%. But only 78% of the female employees present in USF in 2021 remained continuously in the Bargaining Unit over the next two years.

This suggests that female retention may not be much different from the rest of the Unit.

Employees who specified an ethnicity other than "non-Hispanic White" increased 6% over these two years, and its proportion of the Bargaining Unit hovered around 30%. And the retention was about the same as the rest of the Unit: 82% of those present in 2021 remained continuously in the Bargaining Unit continuously through 2023.

In general, the number of employees who remained continuously at USF in their category from 2021 to 2023 declined about a fifth. Thus suggests an annual attrition rate of about ten percent, which is not inconsistent with previous years. And while some groups of employees are more impacted than others, it appears to be affecting all major categories of employees.

Workshop Tomorrow

This summer, we posted several articles on how the contract protects your rights and privileges:

Salary. The Administration can't just give raises to employees they like; there are criteria and procedures.
Academic freedom. The courts are equivocal on whether faculty without union-bargained contracts have academic freedom (see the July 13 issue for an example of what can happen if faculty don't have a contract). But our contract is unequivocal.
Assignments and Appointments. Assignments and appointments can't be unreasonable, with details spelled out.
Non-renewals, Layoffs, Dismissals, and Getting Fired. Your boss can't just fire you because he doesn't like you.
And if your contractual rights are violated, then what? The contract mandates a grievance process - but you get union representation only if you are a member.

Tomorrow Friday, at 12:30 (after the chapter meeting) we will hold a workshop on the contract (especially on the grievance process) in on USF Tampa in MSC3711. Everyone is invited, but because we would like to provide materials to attendees, please send RSVPs to the Chapter Secretary. This workshop will be face-to-face only.

Announcements

Chapter Meeting Tomorrow Friday at 12 noon on USF Tampa in MSC 3711 - and on Zoom - followed by Workshop on the Contract

The USF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida will meet tomorrow Friday at 12 pm on USF Tampa in the Marshall Center in room 3711 - and on Zoom. (Then at 12:30 we will have the workshop focusing on grievances.) On the agenda: this will be a brief meeting in order to save time for the workshop. The workshop will be face-to-face only. And here are the minutes for the previous meeting.

Any employee in the Bargaining Unit may attend, but to Zoom in you must have an invitation: contact the Chapter Secretary to get one.

Meetings and events are posted on the Events Calendar of the UFF USF Website. Come and check us out.

Grievances

If you have been the victim of a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, you have thirty days from the time you knew or should have known of the violation to file a grievance. If you are, and at the time of the violation were, a dues-paying member of the United Faculty of Florida, you have the right to union representation. To contact the UFF USF Grievance Committee, go to the Grievances Page.

A lot of faculty are filing grievances, and we need volunteers to help the Grievance Committee. All UFF members interested in defending the contract and helping their colleagues are invited to come to the workshop tomorrow Friday, on USF Tampa, starting at 12:30 (after the chapter meeting) in MSC 3711.

USF United Support Fund for Food Pantries

Many of our students are struggling during this crisis, and the USF Foundation is supporting the USF Food Pantries to help out. They are accepting non-perishable donations, but one can also make monetary donations for the pantries at St. Petersburg, Sarasota / Manatee, and Tampa.

We are on Social Media

Yes, we are on social media.

We have a Facebook group: see United Faculty of Florida at USF. This page is a place where UFF members can exchange thoughts and ideas. The page is "public", but only dues-paying UFF members are eligible to post items on the page. If you are a UFF member, ask to join on the page, and the moderator will invite every UFF member that asks to join. Non-members are welcome to look (but you need a Facebook account to do that). So check us out.
We have a blog: see The USF Faculty Blog. This has news items as they come up.
We are twitter-pated: follow us on Twitter via @UffUsf.
We even have a You-Tube channel: check out our videos

If you want to help with media matters, contact the Communications Committee chair.

LOGISTICS

The next chapter meeting will be tomorrow Friday, August 12, at 12 noon on USF Tampa campus in MSC 3711 and on Zoom; for the Zoom link, contact the Chapter Secretary. All UFF USF employees are welcome.

All UFF members are invited to attend. Non-members are also invited to come and check us out. To get the link to Zoom, contact the Chapter Secretary. Come and join the movement.

Membership: Everyone in the UFF USF System Bargaining unit is eligible for UFF membership: to join, simply fill out and send in the membership form.

NOTE: The USF-UFF Chapter website is http://www.uff.ourusf.org, and our e-mail address is uff@ourusf.org.

About this broadcast: This Newsletter was broadcast from uff.ourusf.org, hosted at ICDsoft.com, and is intended for all members of the UFF USF Bargaining unit (USF faculty and professionals at most departments). A (usually identical) version will be broadcast to USF-News and USF-Talk from mccolm@usf.edu.

If you do not want to receive the UFF Biweekly, you can unsubscribe below or contacting the Chapter Secretary. If you do not receive the Biweekly, but want to, contact the Chapter Secretary.