February 1, 2010. FAU Eminent Scholar and UFF take on administrator’s headstrong efforts to disrupt established and productive research program.
Dear Colleagues,
I’m Lester Embree, the William F. Dietrich Eminent Scholar in Philosophy. This is to tell you something about my recent experience with the union.
The summer before last, the new dean in the Schmidt College asked me to volunteer as an example by teaching an extra section in the economic bad time for the university. I agreed on the expectation it would be a third course taught the following Spring and that I would remain free in the Fall to attend conferences overseas, as I had done frequently for 10 years and from which many my recent publications have come.
My chief responsibilities as Eminent Scholar at least used to be extensive research primarily and professional service secondarily. I have always received the highest annual evaluations. My two-course-per-year teaching load was agreed to when I was hired in 1990 and was maintained for 19 years by six deans in a row (the shelf life of deans in my college is short). It is a complicated story, but when the extra course was scheduled for the Fall rather than the Spring, thus disrupting my travel and research program, I protested, ultimately “un-volunteered,” and was then assigned against my will to teach then not one but two additional courses and thus that my traditional teaching load was doubled.
During this time, I was offered to teach a short course in Taiwan for $15,000 and proposed to use that money to fund five (5) adjunct-taught sections in my place, but my offer was declined and I began to suspect that more than I could see was going on, but I have not yet figured out what it is.
Long a member of the union, I turned to it for help. Doug Broadfield, the UFF Contract Enforcement Chair, helped me bring a series of grievances, but to no avail. Then we sought support from the union on the state-wide level for “Binding Arbitration.” Since that involved the investment of substantial money, it was not sure to be agreed to, and I was delighted when we received agreement with the reason that this was no way to use an Eminent Scholar.
Binding arbitration is quite a process. Ultimately the case was lost. All along we knew that our chances were at best 50/50, yet I had the ultimately futile hope that the university would settle rather than embarrass itself by treating a top performer this way.
What I am sharing here are two documents used in the arbitration process: “The Disruption of my Program of Research and Professional Leadership” I wrote to introduce myself to Bruce Nissen, whom I had not yet met and who was coming to lead my union representation. I now confess to have gotten carried away while analyzing my c.v. and coming to see that I had accomplished far more at FAU than I had previously recognized. Please excuse the seeming immodesty, which is not usual for me.
The second document is the “Final-Union-Brief” prepared by Dr. Nissen. Most simply put, it is beautifully intelligent and articulate in arguing my case. I am confident that my academic colleagues will recognize what a fine effort the union made on my behalf. (And one can wonder if the university will find it easier in future to recruit eminent scholars now that it is a matter of public record that it is clearly willing to break repeatedly reaffirmed agreements after practically 20 years of top performance.)
In sum, I’ve done what I was hired to do, but FAU has let me down.
To finish the song line: “I’m sticking by the union because the union stuck by me.”
In solidarity,
LESTER