By Jennifer Proffitt, UFF President
On May 5, 2016, Governor Scott announced that he was convening an invitation-only summit regarding higher education in Florida titled, Degrees to Jobs Summit, held at the swank Loews Portofino Bay Resort at Universal Studios May 25-26. The purpose of the event, according to the Governor, was to discuss “how we can better prepare students to get a great education for a high-skill, high-wage job and graduate with a great career in the Sunshine State.” Most of us would agree that higher education is about much more than getting a job in Florida, but even if we were to accept this job training model of our colleges and universities, it is important to note that not one faculty member was invited to speak. At least as far as we can tell from media reports and the Governor’s office’s response to our statement below, no faculty were even invited to attend. We called the Governor’s office several times to see if we could score an invitation, but our calls were not returned. Despite the fact that Scott said that the panel with three football coaches and the attendance of a few administrators demonstrated that there were “plenty of faculty” at the summit, I think it is safe to say that the lack of faculty representation at a summit about higher education is extremely problematic and incredibly shortsighted.
But it became crystal clear why faculty were not invited when we heard State College of Florida Board of Trustee member Eric Robinson (who is running for Sarasota County School Board) encourage other colleges to get rid of continuing contracts for new faculty as the Trustees did at State College of Florida, saying, “I think it’s the right thing to do…We’re the first ones to do this and people are still applying to come to our college. Our college has not closed down. The doom and gloom hasn’t happened.” (Important safety note: the decision to eliminate contracts for new faculty was only rammed through in January of this year). To make matters worse, another excellent speaker featured on this panel was Allen Norton & Blue shareholder Mike Mattimore, chief negotiator for management at several of our institutions, who advocated for advancing management priorities through the use of the impasse process (see http://thefloridachannel.org/videos/52516-governors-degrees-jobs-summit-part-2/ around 1:14; Eric Robinson was on the same panel around 1:05). It’s not clear how anti-union and anti-faculty policies help students get jobs; instead, this panel demonstrates how disingenuous the summit really was.
What is clear from this summit and recent press accounts is that higher education is in the crosshairs of the Governor’s office and the Florida Legislature. This new focus brings with it many challenges and perhaps many opportunities, and with your help, the United Faculty of Florida will be able to navigate these potentially treacherous political waters for the betterment of our institutions.