We are glad to hear President Machen confirm his willingness to
reconsider aspects of his Budget Reduction Proposal. In light of that
confirmation, and in light of our mutual commitment to UF's academic
quality, the union would like to call particular attention to the
following features of the Proposal as it currently stands:

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES. The Proposal identifies for elimination or
consolidation a wide range of tracks, areas, and departments related
to international studies. Faculty in Jewish Studies, Japanese,
Vietnamese, Korean, Swahili, Yoruba, German, Slavic, and French have
been targeted for layoff. These cuts will seriously undermine the
development of international studies, one of the hallmarks of a
top-tier university.

DIVERSITY. Of the 20 faculty targeted for layoff as a result of the
Proposal, at least 8 are women, at least 9 are foreign-born, and at
least 4 are both. The UF community, including President Machen, has
explicitly identified diversity as an integral part of a quality
education. The union believes that a university's commitment to
diversity is revealed by how firmly it holds to its principles in
difficult times.

DOCTORAL STUDIES. All top-tier universities offer PhD degrees in core
academic fields. The Proposal identifies for elimination the PhD in
Philosophy, French, and German. This would make UF one of the very
few universities in the AAU not to offer a PhD in those fields. It
would also become the only research university in Florida not to do
so, even though it is the flagship institution.

SHARED GOVERNANCE. Faculty are best qualified to make decisions
affecting the quality of their academic programs. Therefore, academic
quality suffers when any decision is made to cut or eliminate an
academic program without adequate faculty input.

Visit our website at www.uffacultycontract.org/new/index.shtml. If
you have not yet joined the union, please print and fill out a
membership form. Whether you are a member or not, your rights are
protected by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. If you believe that
any of your rights have been violated, we encourage you to contact
Prof. Jane Brockmann at 376-0473, at 392-1297, or at
hjanebrockmann@bellsouth.net.


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As a member of the CLAS Faculty Finance Committee, I wish to correct Interim Dean
Glover’s inaccurate statements that the faculty was consulted regarding the 6% cuts and that the
committees consulted refused to provide input. Our committee in fact produced two reports on the
cuts, but Dean Glover rejected most of our recommendations out of hand. We were all cognizant
that the cuts of this size would require layoffs, which we recognized would be a matter subject to the
UFF contract. In my personal view, any decision to cut departments or end programs requires
widespread consultation and long deliberation. Decisions to cut programs are largely irreversible.
Thus, such decisions potentially have a transformative impact on the mission of the college and
should not be undertaken in the context of a budget crisis. I regard the entire process as flawed in
several respects: it was hasty and heedless, and done without meaningful faculty input.

Susan Hegeman
English

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All --
I write today because I know you are members of the steering committee, and that in that role you
will meet with President Machen to discuss the proposed budget cuts. One of the issues I hope you
will address is the issue of the faculty layoffs in CLAS, which have resulted, as I understand it
(though my information is unofficial) in the laying off of at least six tenure track faculty members,
several of whom have been at UF more than 3 years.
All the layoffs, of faculty and staff, are tragedies. But those layoffs of tenure track faculty are not
merely devastating blows to the people (and their families) involved. They are also terrible blows to
other programs. Grouped as they are language programs (and related area studies programs) they
impact departments of history, anthropology, sociology, literature, and political science, to name just
the obvious departments that will find it harder to train their own students and build the appropriate
intellectual communities without colleagues whose focus is on the languages and literatures and
cultures of other places.
It is hard for me to understand how any university that sought to be a top tier comprehensive
program could make cuts of this sort and fire faculty in these disciplines. It is even harder for me to
understand how UF, a university long (and correctly) noted for its excellence in languages can make
a move of this sort. I note, as did the CLAS Faculty Finance Committee in its Report, Part II (issued
this spring) that just last year the Faculty Senate approved a strategic plan for the university that
made the following statement:
"The University of Florida belongs to a tradition of great universities. Together with its
undergraduate and graduate students, University of Florida faculty participate in an educational
process that links the history of Western Europe with the traditions and cultures of all societies,
explores the physical and biological universes, and nurtures generations of young people from
diverse backgrounds to address the needs of the world's societies. The university welcomes the full
exploration of its intellectual boundaries and supports its faculty and students in the creation of new
knowledge and the pursuit of new ideas."
The layoffs in CLAS of faculty cannot be squared with those sentiments. I hope you will think long
and hard about whether you will approve those layoffs, both because of the terrible consequences of
approving the laying off of tenure track faculty and because the layoffs are inconsistent with a
strategic plan you approved just one year ago.
Let me add one other, more personal note. In the news, you will have heard both the interim Dean
of CLAS and President Machen dismiss the claims that faculty in CLAS were insufficiently
consulted about the cuts. Both have taken the position that the faculty were asked for input and
refused to give it. Today in the Sun, President Machen explained that CLAS faculty had taken the
position that they could not recommend the laying off of colleagues as a matter of principle. He
added that since layoffs had to happen, the administration had to step in to the vacuum caused by
the faculty's failure to act.
I was chair of the Faculty Finance Committee in CLAS for most of spring semester (until I resigned
during spring break because I was overwhelmed with the work I was doing in too many fronts). I
had been a member of the CLAS finance committee for two years, in a period that began with the
debt reduction program and then encompassed the budget cuts.
I do not write this note on behalf of the committee, since I am no longer a part of it. I speak only
for myself, to reflect my understanding of what actually happened.
It is, to be blunt, unfair to suggest that the Finance Committee refused to engage the problem of the
budget cuts. We agonized over the cuts, and over what we should do. Our agony (and I do not use
that word lightly) was compounded by our sense, expressed in our reports of the previous year, that
CLAS was underfunded already and that any cut to its too low budget would be something the
college literally could not absorb. I think our fears in that respect are born out by the actual cuts
made to the various colleges. A close look at the faculty reductions across the university indicates
that in most colleges, many, if not all, of the reductions to faculty lines will occur by not filling
faculty lines. In CLAS, that was not possible, the payback of the debt already took those vacant lines
away.
And the Finance Committee tried to make that point clear, in both the reports issued this spring.
The links to the reports are here:http://www.clas.ufl.edu/gov/comm/finance.html (I also call your
attention to the reports issued by the Committee in 2007). But let me highlight one portion of the
Finance Committee's Report, Part II (I have omitted a footnote, for the sake of simplicity):
"Assessment of possible college-wide cuts:
In our view, an additional $3 million cut to the CLAS budget can only be achieved through layoffs
arising from the closure of entire units of the college. For CLAS to cut an additional $3 million out
of its budget it would have to eliminate one mid-sized department or a combination of two or more
smaller departments. Alternatively, CLAS would have to eliminate the entire graduate program in
two large departments.
We are neither able nor willing to recommend anything so drastic. The layoff procedures that would
have to be employed to eliminate any of those units are established in various collective bargaining
agreements and are beyond the purview of this committee. We also note that recommending the
elimination of any unit in CLAS would be inconsistent with the principles articulated in the
University’s strategic plan. And in the spirit of shared governance, which that same strategic plan
identifies as the key to preserving the intellectual integrity of the University of Florida, we believe it
is important to make sure that any decision of that magnitude be conducted with deliberation,
according to a process that involves all the stakeholders and seems fair to all concerned."
We did not refuse to address layoffs as a matter of principle. We refused to address layoffs because
we could see no way to recommend them without going against the strategic plan that the Faculty
Senate had approved. And we also indicated our belief that layoffs, if they were to occur, had to
occur after consultation with the relevant faculty and staff unions and in consultation with the
relevant stakeholders in the various departments and programs that would be effected by those cuts.
I will also try to post this message in the appropriate comment page. I am not sure if it will go
through. Feel free to circulate this email to other members of the Steering Committee as you see fit.
Thank you,
Elizabeth Dale

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