A forum for pithy remarks and observations concerning FAU that the news media may have overlooked.
Jessell’s Sleight of Hand
(Updated June 22, 2009)
Now you see it, now you don’t with FAU Senior Vice President for Financial Affairs and infrequent Apparel Code Czar Ken Jessell. Frank Brogan and his Board of Trustees boast how they are running FAU like a private corporation–a corporation that’s purportedly strapped for cash because of modest decreases in state appropriations. Jessell appears to be called upon to weave a tale of the university’s fiscal woes that, most significantly, downplays how FAU actually consists of entities such as the Florida Atlantic University Foundation Inc. and the Florida Atlantic University Research Corporation Inc.–which together have assets of around $1 billion. So too are additional sources of reserve revenue downplayed, such as the millions received and anticipated from Clearwire. The apparent subterfuge creates the basis for Brogan’s “visionary” reorganization and accompanying faculty and staff terminations. UFF-FAU provided an independent assessment by an outside expert on university finances at the PERC hearing on February 24 that revealed these intricacies, and how FAU was flush with reserves–reserves Jessell magically glosses over with each new set of figures.
Layoff Rights and Layoff Wrongs
June 19, 2009
“Our newspaper reports [in Palm Beach/Broward] aren’t any different from those in other places around Florida, Most [state universities] are looking into or implementing layoffs,” Frank T. Brogan observed as the June 17, 2009 FAU Board of Trustees Meeting got underway. That may be true, Mr. Brogan, but schools like Florida State and University of Central Florida have gone about layoffs without violating their Collective Bargaining Agreements or common protocols of faculty governance. Each has given their faculty a minimum one year’s notice with the possibility of two years and are appropriately using federal stimulus money to keep such faculty members at their jobs. FAU is the only university to have solely laid off tenured faculty members, and added insult to injury by callously telling these professors to have their offices cleared out by August. In another clear sign of dubious management and an overall lack of foresight, the terminations will most likely cost FAU–meaning Joe and Jane Taxpayer–millions of dollars once the wronged parties have had their days in court.
Blaming the Victims?
June 17, 2009
“Your analogy is tending toward the disrespectful toward those of us who worked so hard [in this reorganization].” –FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science Dean Karl Stevens to Engineering Professor and COECS Faculty Assembly Chair Nurgun Erdol at the June 17, 2009 Board of Trustees Meeting. Stevens’ outburst came after Erdol remarked to the BOT that COECS faculty members had never approved the reorganization of the College, which immediately preceded the termination of five tenured Engineering professors. “The restructuring is not complete without faculty and academic input.” In this case, “the decision making was from the administration,” Erdol pointed out, and COECS’s reorganization “was the brainchild of a business management consultant.”
Who’s Next?
June 16, 2009
“If the administration can fire [tenured professors in the College of Engineering], it can fire any of us.” –faculty member at University Faculty Senate Special Meeting, June 5, 2009.
As individuals who have dedicated our lives to the academy we need to seriously ask ourselves, Is tenure still meaningful at FAU? You may be enjoying your time away from campus, but the FAU Administration and Board of Trustees are not taking the summer off. After having terminated five tenured faculty members in the College of Engineering and Computer Science they are working overtime this summer to set the groundwork for even more layoffs over the next year. President Frank Brogan and the BOT dismissed a unanimous condemnation by the University Faculty Senate of the firing of the five Engineering faculty. Under the auspices of revenue shortfalls, Enterprise Resource Planning consultant Susan Clemmons, who knows little about higher education and probably much less about your discipline and area of expertise, is being paid $150.00 per hour to advise the administration on how to reorganize colleges, schools and departments, and what faculty and staff will be shown the door after this reorganization.
Brogan versus Brogan
June 13, 2009.
“This president respects tenure as much as he did when he arrived [at FAU]. … [T]he suspicions are misguided. FAU respects tenure as much as any other state university. As president of this university I want that quote entered into the record in a way that cannot be misunderstood and shouldn’t be accepted as anything but what I mean it to be. This university supports tenure. That’s a fact.” —Frank Brogan, June 10, 2009
Fact: As Florida Commissioner of Education, Frank Brogan led the fight against tenure for K-12 educators, derisively referring to a scaled-back term for teacher evaluation and improvement as “tenure light.” Why would Brogan’s regard for the tenure of educators in the academy differ?