Foreign news junkies may recall that in 2019, the Central European University was exiled from Budapest to Vienna. The university was a "bastion of liberalism" and Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán had issues with the university's founder, George Soros. Some of Orbán's admirers were delighted that gender studies would no longer be supported by public monies in Hungary, and one admirer looked forward to Florida's 'Orban' Renewal Project.
In that spirit, the sixty-day legislative session opened on Tuesday. Some observers ascribed the spirit to Governor DeSantis [USF login required], and one angrily claimed that Florida Could Start Looking a Lot Like Hungary.
But while politicians and pundits debated the morality of Orbán's program, the coldly realistic observation would be that Hungary had just lost the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rank # 124 (by subject) university. And returning to Florida, the ocean is rising, insurance rates are rising, overburdened highways are jammed, our industrial competitors in California and Massachusetts (not to mention China and Germany) are pushing the technological frontier, and Florida's political leadership is focussing on marginalizing marginalized people - and harassing Florida's educators in the process.
To be fair, whatever you may think of her approach, the Senate President is addressing an actual problem, so some legislators are doing their jobs some of the time. With that positive thought in mind, during this legislative session, members of UFF and its affiliates are visiting Tallahassee to talk to ordinary legislators about (1) how unhelpful all this bad legislation is and, time permitting, (2) what Florida really needs. In this issue, we look at some of the unhelpful legislation being proposed.
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The USF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida will meet tomorrow Friday at 12 pm at USF Tampa in EDU415 and on Zoom. On the agenda: the legislative session, the chapter election, the recruiting drive, and more. 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.
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If you have been the victim of a violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement or the recent Memorandum of Understanding, 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.
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.
Yes, we are on social media.
We have not reached the point (yet) when politicians can directly attack teachers; instead, they attack the organizations that teachers form. Thus, Governor DeSantis announced legislation to "... Empower Educators, Protect Teachers from Overreaching School Unions and Raise Teacher Pay" when he was actually announcing legislation to harass the unions that teachers organize.
(The Tampa Bay Times had a more cynical take when they reported that Florida bill targeting unions emerges in House [USF login required].)
Two of the reforms that DeSantis proposed are part of his Paycheck Protection package:
On January 31, Governor DeSantis Elevated Civil Discourse and Intellectual Freedom in Higher Education by calling for legislation to make sure that general education core courses were "historically accurate" and did not "teach identity politics," i.e., Critical Race Theory and anything else that makes his more sensitive constituents uncomfortable. Diversity / Equity / Inclusion (DEI) offices and programs were to be drfunded. Presidents and boards of trustees were to take over faculty hiring and retention "without interference from unions and faculty committees." Presidents and boards could conduct a post-tenure review of faculty at any time.
And yet, the university missions are to be aligned for "education for citizenship of the constitutional republic and Florida's existing and emerging workforce needs," which will be hopeless if the previous desiderata are implemented. And as for the universities retaining their accreditation...well, we are all watching to see what happens with New College.
House Bill 999 would implement the governor's desiderata. Inside Higher Ed reported that newly appointed New College Trustee - and pre-eminent anti-DEI activist Chris Rufo crowed that, "…the voters … demanded that taxpayer dollars stop subsidizing left-wing racialist ideology and partisan political activism. Democracy returns." Meanwhile, the president of the University of Florida Faculty Senate said that the bill "…turns the state university system into a political entity that will be completely controlled by whomever is elected in Tallahassee."
Readers of a certain age might reflect that Florida is getting the sort of national and international attention traditionally reserved for California and Texas. And now, Florida's government is astonishing Americans across the country. For example:
There are signs that the campaign is not just for show. After all, the governor did replace much of the New College Board, and the new Board's actions have raised the spectre of New College losing its accreditation. (And while the law requires Florida's universities to seek new accreditors, it's not clear that any of the other accreditors will be interested in Florida.)
Meanwhile, the governor's office is requesting reports from schools on what books they have [USF login required] and higher ed institutions about DEI efforts. What these reports will lead to is unknown, but it may well have measurable effects.
The National Education Association, one of our national affiliates, condemned the attacks on college and university faculty. Whether or not such condemnations are a concern for Florida legislators, what should concern them is what will happen to Florida as Florida's educational system is degraded.
The next chapter meeting will be tomorrow Friday, March 10, at 12 pm on USF Tampa campus in EDU415 and on Zoom; for the Zoom link, contact the Chapter Secretary. All UFF USF employees are welcome.
A Political Officer on Every Campus
The Florida Show
The Florida Legislature has a long history of … eccentric … bills, and the novelty here is the number of these bills together with the number of eccentric executive actions and the amount of media coverage they get. It is not clear what is going on. This may be about next year's election [USF login required], and indeed, a political consultant told the Tampa Bay Times that it was all about "… drilling down on some of the really hot topics that primary voters are interested in." (Primary voters, maybe, but for the general election, Pew reports that the top issues are economic).
LOGISTICS
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