U Florida terminates DEI positions

[ciao_yall]

Terminating more than DEI at UF: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/tenure/2024/08/07/big-chunk-professors-flunked-uf-post-tenure-review

This is wild.

For a bit of context:

Angle combined people who received the two lowest ratings, "unsatisfactory" and "does not meet expectations," which puts professors on a performance improvement plan that can lead to their firing.

The report said that, out of 262 professors up for review, 31 "either retired, entered retirement agreements or resigned during the review period." A further 34 didn't meet expectations and five were dubbed unsatisfactory. Add those categories up, and it's 27 percent.

So only 5 of 262 were basically fired; 34 were put on notice that they'd have to improve. 31 decided to retire or resign.

Those numbers don't sound so odd.

At your institution, are there 2% of tenured faculty who are really bad? I'd guess there are at most places.
Are there 13% who seriously need to improve? Doesn't sound to strange to me.

And I'm just thinking about teaching; combining research and teaching, those proportions of people who aren't hitting their mark seems unsurprising.

On the one hand I'm inclined to agree with you, marshwiggle. We all have our colleagues who use tenure as an excuse to become deadwood, act like jerks, or should have retired long ago.

Still, the suspicion is that it's not those people who were specifically targeted.

[marshwiggle]

Terminating more than DEI at UF: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/tenure/2024/08/07/big-chunk-professors-flunked-uf-post-tenure-review

This is wild.

For a bit of context:

Angle combined people who received the two lowest ratings, "unsatisfactory" and "does not meet expectations," which puts professors on a performance improvement plan that can lead to their firing.

The report said that, out of 262 professors up for review, 31 "either retired, entered retirement agreements or resigned during the review period." A further 34 didn't meet expectations and five were dubbed unsatisfactory. Add those categories up, and it's 27 percent.

So only 5 of 262 were basically fired; 34 were put on notice that they'd have to improve. 31 decided to retire or resign.

Those numbers don't sound so odd.

At your institution, are there 2% of tenured faculty who are really bad? I'd guess there are at most places.
Are there 13% who seriously need to improve? Doesn't sound to strange to me.

And I'm just thinking about teaching; combining research and teaching, those proportions of people who aren't hitting their mark seems unsurprising.

On the one hand I'm inclined to agree with you, marshwiggle. We all have our colleagues who use tenure as an excuse to become deadwood, act like jerks, or should have retired long ago.

Still, the suspicion is that it's not those people who were specifically targeted.

The fact that the numbers are so low makes it pretty underwhelming as any sort of ideological "purge".  It's hard to believe there will be any significant effect on general faculty makeup.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Terminating more than DEI at UF: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/tenure/2024/08/07/big-chunk-professors-flunked-uf-post-tenure-review

This is wild.

For a bit of context:

Angle combined people who received the two lowest ratings, "unsatisfactory" and "does not meet expectations," which puts professors on a performance improvement plan that can lead to their firing.

The report said that, out of 262 professors up for review, 31 "either retired, entered retirement agreements or resigned during the review period." A further 34 didn't meet expectations and five were dubbed unsatisfactory. Add those categories up, and it's 27 percent.

So only 5 of 262 were basically fired; 34 were put on notice that they'd have to improve. 31 decided to retire or resign.

Those numbers don't sound so odd.

At your institution, are there 2% of tenured faculty who are really bad? I'd guess there are at most places.
Are there 13% who seriously need to improve? Doesn't sound to strange to me.

And I'm just thinking about teaching; combining research and teaching, those proportions of people who aren't hitting their mark seems unsurprising.

On the one hand I'm inclined to agree with you, marshwiggle. We all have our colleagues who use tenure as an excuse to become deadwood, act like jerks, or should have retired long ago.

Still, the suspicion is that it's not those people who were specifically targeted.

Yes, this breakdown of the numbers makes it seem reasonable - and maybe it is. It would be good to know what the process looks like at UF (seems to have produced quite a different outcome than at other Florida schools, although I haven't dug into the numbers like marsh did).

We have a post-tenure review process at my state school which has been in place for as long as I've been there. It is done at the department level during the annual review, although presumably the university gets involved at some point if the department were to recommend that someone incur strict penalties (i.e. having tenure revoked). I've never heard of anyone losing tenure. Instead they would have to teach more or perhaps take on a heightened service role if they aren't producing on the research side.

My take is that tenure, like any system, is open to some abuse, but it serves an important purpose and chipping away at it is a slippery slope that is likely to do more harm than good in practice.

[jimbogumbo]

More weirdness: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2024/08/09/lawmaker-claims-credit-antisemitism-review-florida

[mythbuster]

I'll let y'all in on some key details for the Florida Post-tenure review situation. The Union for each SUS school negotiated the details of the post-tenure review rules with their admins independently. So you cannot compare the fail rates at UF to FSU since the rules may not have been the same.
    It's actually likely they were quite different, since DeSantis has all his cronies loaded up on the BOT at UF, while he leaves FSU much more to it's own devices (except for the football conference thing).
   Also, only 20% of the faculty are reviewed at one time- but it is NOT clear that it's a random selection of 20%. At my institution the fact that a disproportionate number of Social Scientists were "randomly" selected the first round resulted in much side eye regarding the process by the faculty.
   I will be curious to see if the UF Union catches any flack or goes on the offensive as a result of this. The UF faculty that I interact with all seem surprisingly clueless about all of these state level machinations. This may wake them up a bit.

[Wahoo Redux]

The fact that the numbers are so low makes it pretty underwhelming as any sort of ideological "purge".  It's hard to believe there will be any significant effect on general faculty makeup.

This looks to me like two things: one, psychological warfare; and, two, setting a precedent----testing the weapon, so to speak.

You think these remaining faculty aren't nervous?  You think a guy like DeSantis is going to dust off his hands and say, 'Okay, glad we got that unpleasantness out of the way'?

Of course, not everyone who is in academia should be in academia, but I greatly mistrust the anti-education conservative cabal.

[Mobius]

Quite the jump in office budgets. He was living high on the hog.

https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/08/sasse-s-spending-spree-former-uf-president-channeled-millions-to-gop-allies-secretive-contracts

[jimbogumbo]

And they are terminating books also: https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2024/08/15/new-college-of-florida-throws-away-hundreds-of-library-books-diversity-lgbtq/74814756007/

[Mobius]

We can put to bed that he quit to take care of his wife. You don't get paid for four years if you resign to take care of a spouse.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2024/08/26/sasse-keep-1-million-salary-uf-until-2028/

[dismalist]

You don't get paid for four years if you resign to take care of a spouse.

Au contraire, this looks to me like a garden variety golden parachute. Boards want Presidents to take risks. The parachute is an insurance policy for the President.

It's actually quite modest, being limited in time. Gay keeps her presidential salary for life, as does the Penn lady, I think. Don't know about Columbia.

[jimbogumbo]

You don't get paid for four years if you resign to take care of a spouse.

Au contraire, this looks to me like a garden variety golden parachute. Boards want Presidents to take risks. The parachute is an insurance policy for the President.

It's actually quite modest, being limited in time. Gay keeps her presidential salary for life, as does the Penn lady, I think. Don't know about Columbia.

At a public this length (too long) seems rare to me, especially given his relatively short time on the job.

[Mobius]

He was forced out in a power struggle with a fellow conservative. The golden parachute made it much easier to swallow.

You don't get paid for four years if you resign to take care of a spouse.

Au contraire, this looks to me like a garden variety golden parachute. Boards want Presidents to take risks. The parachute is an insurance policy for the President.

It's actually quite modest, being limited in time. Gay keeps her presidential salary for life, as does the Penn lady, I think. Don't know about Columbia.

[Langue_doc]

NYT article on Ben Sasse's resignation:

A Star President's Resignation Was a Mystery. Was It All About Rankings?
Florida's star president, Ben Sasse, was among the best paid university presidents ever. He promised a conservative overhaul, but then he resigned, leaving controversy and an embarrassing drop in the U.S. News rankings.

Behind a paywall, unfortunately, but see if you can access it through your institutional or public library account.

The first section of the article here:

Ben Sasse, the Nebraska senator, arrived in Florida in February 2023 to help cement a conservative makeover of one of the nation's top five public universities.

The University of Florida had lured the senator with an unusual $10 million, five-year contract, possibly the most lucrative ever for a public university president. Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded the selection of a fellow Republican, calling Dr. Sasse a "deep thinker on education policy."

Then, in July, just 17 months into his contract at the Gainesville university, Dr. Sasse resigned, sparking a host of questions about what went wrong.

Dr. Sasse cited his wife's deteriorating health as the reason for his departure. But observers of the university knew there were a number of other possible factors.

The former senator had never quite won over many professors or students. After he announced his resignation, there were revelations about questionable hiring practices and spending.

There were also signs that Dr. Sasse faced another problem that has haunted college leaders everywhere: the school's U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Before Dr. Sasse took over the school, the University of Florida had been proudly ranked among the country's top five public universities. Just months into Dr. Sasse's tenure, though, the school fell to No. 6, prompting the removal of the No. 5 banners that had hung from lampposts throughout campus.

Dr. Sasse didn't have much respect for the U.S. News & World Report rankings, but the university's politically connected board of trustees very much did.

Ben Sasse, the Nebraska senator, arrived in Florida in February 2023 to help cement a conservative makeover of one of the nation's top five public universities.

The University of Florida had lured the senator with an unusual $10 million, five-year contract, possibly the most lucrative ever for a public university president. Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded the selection of a fellow Republican, calling Dr. Sasse a "deep thinker on education policy."

Then, in July, just 17 months into his contract at the Gainesville university, Dr. Sasse resigned, sparking a host of questions about what went wrong.

Dr. Sasse cited his wife's deteriorating health as the reason for his departure. But observers of the university knew there were a number of other possible factors.

The former senator had never quite won over many professors or students. After he announced his resignation, there were revelations about questionable hiring practices and spending.

There were also signs that Dr. Sasse faced another problem that has haunted college leaders everywhere: the school's U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Before Dr. Sasse took over the school, the University of Florida had been proudly ranked among the country's top five public universities. Just months into Dr. Sasse's tenure, though, the school fell to No. 6, prompting the removal of the No. 5 banners that had hung from lampposts throughout campus.

Dr. Sasse didn't have much respect for the U.S. News & World Report rankings, but the university's politically connected board of trustees very much did.

"The board saw us dropping in the rankings and said, We've got to stabilize the ship," said Danaya Wright, a law professor who served until May as the faculty representative on the board.