Click on the above link to see the most recent UFF-FAU administrator survey.
Some results are worth emphasizing:
1) The ratings for President Kelly are disturbingly low, mostly within the “unsatisfactory” and “needs improvement” categories regarding communication, collaboration, climate, fiscal responsibility, and impact.
These results are particularly unfortunate as they were reported at a time when we were dealing with the height of a pandemic and economic recession when strong leadership was needed. Yet President Kelly was largely absent during faculty senate meetings and public forums. As one faculty member writes in the survey, summarizing a general outlook: “The president is invisible. No faculty contact at all.” We witnessed a similar lack of leadership when the Board of Trustees proposed changes in the tenure process and our University President and Provost failed to speak up in defense of tenure and academic freedom.
2) The Provost scored slightly higher than President Kelly with a majority of responses in the “good” category. The remaining administrator scores hovered around the “good” range as well. Again, these are not particularly encouraging results given the need for leadership while the University grappled with a pandemic and a budget crisis.
3) Faculty comments revolved around four main categories:
● Low pay and salary compression/inversion
● Administrative bloat and the weakening of faculty governance
● Administrators’ inability to reconcile their push for Research 1 status with their actions in managing FAU as if it were a teaching college
● A reductive business mindset that fails to recognize the distinct mission of public higher education
Despite all these problems, faculty maintained FAU’s integrity during the pandemic. This, despite the fact that we lacked resources (for example, providing faculty with two weeks to convert their in-person classes online) that were made available by administrators at many other SUS universities. Instead, during a badly-needed spring break, faculty were sideswiped with the directive to convert all courses online. Although we understand that no one was adequately prepared for this pandemic, many of the shortcomings of the administration fell upon the backs of the faculty, which has led to an extremely difficult year.
As our administration continues negotiating with faculty during bargaining, they should keep in mind the incredibly difficult year faculty are going through along with our disappointed assessment of administrators’ priorities and performance. During bargaining, faculty expect to see some reflection of administrative recognition for our extraordinary labor, including addressing some of our priorities like raises, salary compression/inversion, and other critical issues.
We thank all the faculty who responded to the survey for sharing your voices and concerns. We hear you, and we stand for and with you.