A forum for pithy remarks and observations concerning FAU that the news media may have overlooked. Please limit contributions to 100 words or less and send them to webmaster@uff-fau.org.
Dr. Lenz Goes to Washington
June 19, 2009
Well, not exactly Washington. Not even Tallahassee. But new Board of Trustees faculty member Tim Lenz is getting a taste of the “What I say goes, see?” political style of Frank T. Brogan and the Republican-dominated FAU BOT. The problem with Lenz seems to be that he isn’t afraid to speak his mind and honestly represent the faculty’s wishes. Worse, he even wants to engage in reasoned debate–all of which are no-nos at BOT meetings, where everyone laughs along with Boss Brogan and appears to politely affirm what has already been decided on behind closed doors. In fact, one would be hard pressed to cite a time when Brogan faced a serious rebuke from the Board. It’s apparent that the FAU-BOT has long failed to exercise proper oversight, as Brogan’s near impunity from past blunders suggests. Members might follow Lenz’s lead by reminding themselves that FAU does not stand for “Frank Brogan University” or “Florida Republican University”; the school is still called Florida Atlantic U and it still belongs to the public.
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 at the June 17, 2009 BOT Meeting. That may be true, 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 faculty a minimum one year’s notice and, where possible and appropriate, have used federal stimulus money to keep faculty members employed. FAU is the only university to have solely laid off tenured faculty versus tenture track, and doing so after telling these faculty to have their offices cleared out in 60 days. In what is a clear sign of slipshod management style and an overall lack of foresight the terminations will likely cost FAU–and Joe Taxpayer–millions of dollars once attorney fees are assessed and faculty litigants have had their days in court.
Michael Mattimore, SUPER LAWYER!
June 21, 2009
Able to leap tall Unfair Labor Practice charges in a single bound. More powerful than a thousand employee grievances. It’s a bird! It’s a plan! It’s an overpaid CEO! No, it’s Michael Mattimore, SUPER LAWYER! When President Frank T. Brogan MA ’81 and his pack of in-house attorneys botch a job and find themselves in a pickle, they pick up the phone and call Super Lawyer Mattimore, partner of the high-priced labor-management law firm, Allen, Norton & Blue PA, and send the tab to Joe Taxpayer. One of the most cunning labor lawyers practicing in Florida today, Mattimore is retained by FAU and other universities in the State University System to keep faculty salaries depressed and gut collective bargaining agreements of their most meaningful protections. While faculty are facing layoffs or just plain upset about being shortchanged in our paychecks, Michael Mattimore is laughing all the way to the yacht club! Yet like every superhero, Mattimore has a vulnerability–high UFF chapter membership. At FIU faculty salaries are about 10% higher than those at FAU, and the UFF/FIU-BOT Collective Bargaining Agreement is much more favorable to faculty because they are dues-paying members and take pride in their union. Show SUPER LAWYER his kryptonite! Consider joining UFF-FAU today.
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 was a vigorous opponent of 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?
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 strapped for cash because of modest decreases in state appropriations. Jessell is called upon to weave a tale of the university’s fiscal woes that, most significantly, downplays how FAU consists of entities such as the Florida Atlantic University Foundation Inc. and the Florida Atlantic University Research Corporation Inc.–which together have assets of roughly $1 billion. The 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.
Blaming the Victim?
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 prompting the termination of five tenured faculty. “The restructuring is not complete without faculty and academic input.” In this case, “the decision making was from the administration” and COECS’s reorganization, Erdol noted, “was the brainchild of a business consultant.”
“After the Renaissance”
June 13, 2009
At the FAU Board of Trustees Subcommittee meeting of June 10 Frank Brogan rationalized the termination of five tenured faculty members in the College of Engineering and Computer Science by arguing that they “were not Renaissance people,” noting that their specialization in Engineering was too narrow to justify their continued existence on FAU’s payroll. In fact, any university worth its salt prides itself a faculty of accomplished individuals with unique areas of specialization that they have spent a large portion of their lives becoming specialized in.