Dean Karl Stevens will make a formal presentation to the University Faculty Senate, titled, “Academic Reorganization in the College of Engineering and Computer Science,” on October 2 between 2:00 and 4:00PM in the Board of Trustees Room, Williams Administration Building, FAU Boca Campus. The reorganization of the College into “functional units” in April was followed four weeks later with Stevens’ abrupt termination of five tenured faculty members that made FAU nationally recognized within the academic community as the university that undermined tenure.
At a College of Engineering faculty meeting in September Stevens proposed rewriting the College’s bylaws in order to conform with the reorganization that Engineering faculty and the University Faculty Senate unanimously condemned in June for not having followed proper faculty governance procedures in the first place.
The “functional units” appear to have no other purpose than to get around the language of the UFF-FAU/FAUBOT Collective Bargaining Agreement that stipulates a seniority process in the case of faculty layoffs. It may also be seen as a “trial balloon” for what administrators seek to do across the University. Although some of the terminated faculty members have been reinstated to other positions, UFF-FAU is pursuing grievances against the administration for violation of the CBA. FAU administrators have so far failed to cooperate in setting up the procedures necessary for the arbitration of the grievances to proceed, thus further exacerbating already strained relations with faculty that developed under former Lieutenant Governor Frank Brogan. This is because even though some of the terminated faculty have been reinstated, University administrators have not rescinded the layoffs, thereby reserving the right to reorganize Engineering or any other number of colleges at FAU and proceed to fire tenured and tenure- track faculty as they please. The only thing that stands in their way to proceed along these lines is the CBA and UFF.
On a related note, another item to be discussed at the Faculty Senate is “Project Vision,” a plan of the present administration facilitated by efficiency expert Susan Clemmons. “I think it is time for the faculty to begin thinking about planning recommendations, to start putting some of the ideas/facts, college/program discussions, and visioning exercises together for discussion as options/priorities/models for the University,” Senate President, Political Science Department Chair, and BOT member Tim Lenz suggests in his Report to the UFS on the BOT Retreat.