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Prior days' news: By date | Search This week's print issue Back issues: By date | Search May 5, 2008U. of Florida Plans Layoffs and Enrollment Cuts as State Funds FallFacing a cut in state appropriations, the president of the University of Florida announced a plan today that would trim $47-million from the university’s budget for the 2008-9 fiscal year by laying off 20 faculty members and 118 staff members and leaving 290 other positions unfilled, among other steps. President Bernie Machen’s proposal also calls for reducing the university’s undergraduate enrollment by 4,000 over the next four years, cutting back on research, and eliminating some degree programs. The plan will be presented to the faculty later this week and to the trustees next Monday. “Our priority is to protect the quality and education at the University of Florida,” Mr. Machen said in a message posted on the university’s Web site. “But clearly, we cannot take reductions this large without making difficult choices.” Mr. Machen also said that the university’s goal of becoming one of the top 10 research institutions in the nation may be delayed by its budget woes and that he fears qualified faculty members may leave for greener pastures after going two years without a pay raise. The proposal comes in response to a state budget, approved late last week, that slashed $4-billion from education, health care, and other areas of state spending, according to The Tampa Tribune. State agencies, including public colleges and universities, were asked to trim their budgets by 6 percent. They have until July 1, when the new budget year begins, to figure out how to deal with those cuts. Universities have been bracing for the cuts since the legislative session began, in March. Other institutions may also resort to student and personnel reductions, the Associated Press reported today. Florida State University officials told the AP that they had not yet decided whether layoffs would be necessary, but that the institution was not filling vacant positions. Officials at Florida International University said they were planning to lay off as many as 200 people, shut down several academic centers, eliminate some degree programs, and accept fewer students. —Sara Hebel Posted on Monday May 5, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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The Florida legislature has to be the saddest munch of morons on the planet. I’m glad I’m not on faculty in that state.
— DLS May 5, 08:02 PM #
Well said DLS. I used to be and now thank my lucky stars that I found another (better) TT job. Florida, what a hell hole.
— wd May 5, 09:27 PM #
DLS: I assume you meant “sorriest munch of morons” — correct?
DLS and wd: Specifically — Chronicle readers want details — what are the top actions you believe these sad and/or sorry legislators should have taken to avoid steep cuts for higher education, and how would each have affected other areas of government responsibility?
— B. F. "Mule" Skinner May 6, 01:30 AM #
What we lack mostly is a sound tax policy in Florida. This isn’t the place for details, but we are cheap and proud of it, and have been for years. Second, increase the price of tuition (Florida is the cheapest in the nation—last year the Governor vetoed a 5% tuition increase; this year he says he’ll sign a 6% increase). Third, stop meddling so much by both creating rules and regulations we have to abide by without giving us funding to do so and by directing large amounts of money to legislators’ pet projects that don’t really help the state or its universities (two new unneeded medical schools come immediately to mind).
— Ken May 6, 07:28 AM #
But you folks in Florida have Disney World, Busch Gardens, and Panama City Beach’s wet t-shirt bashes. What more could you want?
— GT May 6, 08:07 AM #
One way to address the problem would be to tax swimming pool chemicals and pool cleaning and designate this money for higher education. These two two things were not done when I lived in Florida.
— Bill May 6, 08:25 AM #
The decision to eliminate the PhD in Philosophy is an indication that UF, the alleged “flagship” institution of higher education in the state, has little claim to respect within the academy. Excellence in Philosophy is central to the mission of higher education. The UF administration is shortsighted and intellectually impoverished.
— MO May 6, 08:46 AM #
Having taught in Florida’s education system for ten years, this is par for the course. The state government, regardless of which party is in charge, has always held the education system “hostage” in order to justify raising taxes- but they never seem to spend those new revenues on education! You’ll never hear of layoffs at the capital building, only layoffs of people who are actually doing important work. The lottery was supposed to be “a windfall for education”- we were better funded before the lottery was instituted.
— Tracy May 6, 08:48 AM #
What sort of hit is the football team going to take?
— jruiz May 6, 08:56 AM #
In Georgia the state has been eroding the budgets of the flagship universities for years. Outcome is similar except that we are going down with a chronic disease instead of Florida’s acute one.
— john May 6, 09:57 AM #
I interviewed there last year in a “new program/school” and could already feel the failure of the program. The faculty were defeated and had little interest in research because the incentives were not there. No raises, no kick-backs, nothing.
It was depressing and I wanted nothing more than to leave after the first day.
However, they did show me the football stadium and the basketball facility and the gators in the campus pond.
Made me wonder why the faculty offices were crap, when the football stadium was so beautiful.
It is a disgrace that the “flagship” university in Florida treats its faculty like crap. Without supporting the faculty, no advancement will ever be made.
— TT elsewhere May 6, 10:20 AM #
jruiz and TT: Little funding for football teams comes from the state. The boosters pick up the bill for big items like coaches, stadium, etc.
As a product of the Florida public school system and UF alum myself (MS and PhD), I have to say that I am not surprised by this. However, it makes me very sad. I hate to see my state continue to flounder. I know times are tough, but the blame for this has to largely fall on governors and legislators for poor planning and unwise spending. Did FSU really need that medical school? Also, how is the clown college (really) at FSU faring? In fact, let’s just close FSU entirely and give the money to UF.
I kid, I kid… Seriously, though, this is a shame. Right now I am glad that I didn’t apply for any jobs in Florida, although my state is looking at similar budget challenges… planning for a 5% reduction… maybe. We’ll see how safe I am after that tenure track contract I just signed with a state school.
— JCGator May 6, 10:33 AM #
BF (#3): Ken (#4) has hit the highlights. Basically, Florida has a TERRIBLE tax policy and the legislature keeps making it worse. A huge part of the problem was the last governor – Jeb Bush! He spent eight years working to destroy the public education system in the state – from elementary through high school & the university system. He dismantled the (non-political) Board of Regents and replaced them with gov/leg lackeys. Of course, these folks had NO educational backgrounds. Add to this the slashing of all taxes – especially those hitting only the top 5% of incomes while piling on the lowest income groups with sales taxes.
Between the 18th century Republicans (mostly in the north half of the state) and the entrenched northener retirees (who don’t feel they should pay ANY taxes), the state’s financial situation is a MESS! To end with just one excellent example – there is a (supposedly non-political) commission that meets every 20 years to review the state’s tax structure & put proposals on the ballot. Due to manipulations by our former gov (yes, the same Bush) to get his people on the commission, the only notable proposal from them was to legalize giving tax $$$ to private religious schools (with NO accountability) while short-changing the public schools. btw – the courts consistently ruled this as illegal everytime Jeb pushed it thru the legislature (naturally).
I’ve been here for 35 years, received an MS from UF and am deeply embarrassed to even acknowledge I live here any more.
— Gary May 6, 10:50 AM #
JCGator…
If you’re really looking for a school to close it should be UF, for FSU’s president isn’t laying off anyone. Wonder why…maybe cause we at FSU have a better handle on the situation? In all honesty, it’s a terrible situation and the children of Florida will be the biggest losers since they will have to go elsewhere for to attain an education.
— JSeminole May 6, 10:51 AM #
I haven’t lived in Florida, but I’‘ll offer Colorado’s the consequences of our idiot 1993 TABOR tax amendment as its equal. We have assumed the position of (dis)honor – our support for higher ed in Colorado is now less than that in Mississippi. Colorado is 48th out of 50, while Florida ranked 39th in 2008 according to Grapevine.org.
We have clearly decided that higher education is only for those who can afford it, and we’re taking tuition money from the “have” students and giving it to a few “have not’ students as scholarships to ease our consciences. UF is doing what it needs to: make the cuts visible and painful so the legislature will get phone calls from parents.
— Al May 6, 11:00 AM #
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has born the brunt also of cuts to tenure track faculty. 16 of the total of 20 for the whole university were cut from the college. In one case I know of, an assistant professor with very strong support from the college, and a terrific research record, one book published and another on the way out from Oxford, was strung out until Friday, when she was informed that she had been turned down for tenure at the university level. Meanwhile, our President’s annual compensation tops out at $726,849, according to the St. Petersburg Times. Putting half of that into the budget of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences would save a number of highly valuable tenure track faculty and rescue all the Ph.D. programs that are being eliminated. What is the better use of the money?
— KL May 6, 11:00 AM #
Unfortunately, almost every post to this blog has it right. The state now has a governor (Crist) who seems to think saying how great the state is doing will somehow fix the mess he and his predecessor (Jeb Bush) created. And to think that at one time there was talk of moving higher ed in Florida into the “upper quartile”. The current crop of politicos appear to be clueless, caught in a squeeze of their own making. How these folks think they can attract, much less retain, desirable industrial presence in the state is beyond me. I guess they think the natural beauty of the place, something else they seem hell bent for leather to destroy, is a viable substitute for mediocrity. It was pointed out some years ago that the combined percentage of the State’s budget for education and its prison system is remarkably constant. I guess that tells you where things will go from here.
— CW May 6, 11:17 AM #
The anti-intellectualism of the party that governs Florida is thinly disguised, and their electoral supporters reward them for their values. It is unlikely that a distinguished scholar could be recruited or appointed to a Presidency at Florida, Florida State, or South Florida. While it is true that funding has been uneven and problematic for over 30 years, most governors were pro-education and wanted quality higher education.
However, the Bush administration systematically attacked the Board of Regents and supported church-related private education over public schools. Years ago, Governor Reubin Askew courageously campaigned for a corporate income tax and got it, but never had the clout to go on and ask for a personal income tax. The Republicans have granted exceptions and exemptions to businesses and developers until the Corporate Income Tax no longer yields the revenue it should. Thus Florida has gradually become one of the most regressive states in its tax structure, taxing mostly heavily those least able to pay. And, when the economy slows down, Florida’s revenues fall exponentially. The current leadership of the state legislature wants a flat tax — primarily a sales tax. If these folks had their way, the tax base of the state would be much worse than it is now. Sadly, they are proposing to constitutionalize their tax policy this year in the November elections, offering the voters another property tax cut as an inducement to vote in changes to the Constitution that they need. One change would do away with the Constitutional requirement to fund public education. Who would believe it?
Don Freeman
— Donald M. Freeman May 6, 11:49 AM #
To address this situation, UF will gather each administrator on campus whose salary exceeds $200,000 per year for a marathon (1 hour) session. During this session they will decide how many hundreds of low-paid and non-politically connected employees will need to go away to ensure that their own jobs remain safe. Gator chomp!
— Rolph May 6, 01:28 PM #
Two questions:
If a college degree is such a great investment, increasing one’s lifetime expected income by hundreds of thousands of dollars, than why should taxpayers subsidize this investment.
2. We live in a very mobile society now, college graduates especially move frequently from state to state. What possible benefit do the taxpayers of Florida get by subsidizing a bargain college education for Florida residents.
— Dave May 6, 02:01 PM #
UF cuts to the College of Education: $955,000, including 2 PhD programs, 2 Masters programs, and layoffs of 4 staff members
Cuts to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: $5,970,000, including 3 PhD programs and layoffs of 17 staff and 16 faculty
Cuts to the College of Business: $1,470,000, including 2 minors and elimination of 10 unfilled faculty/staff positions (no layoffs)
Cuts to Agriculture and Natural Resources: $9,500,000, including cuts to extension funding and layoffs of 66 faculty/staff
Cuts to Women’s Athletics: $27,000 in Title IX funding
Cuts to Men’s Athletics: $0
Increased probability of becoming a storyline in Carl Hiaasen’s next novel: priceless!
— cp May 6, 02:32 PM #
What we need is a return to an academic work effort and an end to many of the feel good academic programs that do nothing more than run up the cost to the students and the public.
Fact this that over the past 15 years the teaching load (heaven forbid we get into the argument over academic load) has declined over ten percent. Also, programs have been added that raise the cost of education without preparing students for becoming productive citizens. We are our own worst enemies and are becoming more and more out of touch with the realities.
— Allen May 6, 02:36 PM #
As a healthcare CEO, I welcome higher education to the real world. We’ve been dealing with this at the federal and state levels for over two decades. In the good old days we used to receive cost-based reimbursement. Then prospective payments, certificates of need, HMOs, DRGs, hospital closures; and the rest is history.
— GR May 6, 02:42 PM #
Anyone who has worked at UF for a time knows that the administration is at best tolerant of the humanities, treating it as a necessary burden. The legislature and residents don’t want to pay for things they believe are superfluous, like philosophy. languages, and literature (at least those languages not needed for business) and at some level the administration agrees with them. (Some of them have articulated this explicitly). Increasingly, what is desired is a glorified trade school, and that is a little closer now to coming about.
Aside from the shortsightedness of this, some of the cuts are profoundly immoral and disgusting. I hope everyone outside of Florida understands that the administration proposes to fire low level staff members, many in their 50s and 60s who have worked here for decades, sending them out to do what? And that tenure-track faculty members, a number of whom were just about to receive tenure (!), are also being fired. Shameful.
— MH May 6, 03:40 PM #
Wow, I was accepted to all those institutions listed in the article for my PhD, I am glad I am leaving this state for my doctorate rather than staying.
But then again, if they kill off the majority of state funded higher education there will be more workers for their only real source of income: the service industry. So much of the population of Central Florida already work in this industry that it is a vicious cycle of low pay to fund state sales tax to fund corrupt government. If you do not offer those of us who are slaves to Disney (just using the most recognizable giant, and I don’t blame it on a company but on the state that allows the industry to be so abusive) a way out – we will be trapped like flies on flypaper waiting for more victims to join us until the whole strip is covered and must be cut down and replaced.
— Leaving Florida May 6, 04:09 PM #
A footnote to all this—Governor Crist is regularly mentioned as a possible choice of McCain as a vice-presidential running mate. Perhaps the Governor’s tax policy and support for education (or lack thereof) will surface as a national campaign issue.
— S. May 6, 05:27 PM #
To #21: if indeed the figures that you present are accurate, I thank you for giving them. I am proud to be a Floridian (being from Tampa) but am still somewhat shy about mentioning my education at my alma mater, Florida State University. With scant exceptions in the faculty, it was sub-par, to put it politely.
— Darren Aversa May 6, 06:08 PM #
Let it be known that a recent 5 year audit of the university reveals that “the University of Florida is doing quite well for its self financially, with its best year coming in fiscial year 2006-2007 as it increased University UNRESTRICTED funds by 50 milliion and its total institution UNRESTRICTED funds by well over 150 million.” These unrestricted funds are funds that are not earmarked for prior spending, wrapped up in institutional capital, endowments, or university investments. these are funds the university can spend on a rainy day. I think it is raining!
— sd May 6, 07:56 PM #
For anyone interested in signing a petition against eliminating the Ph.D. in Philosophy at Florida’s flagship university:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/145/petition-to-president-machen-to
— AL May 6, 10:03 PM #
“I’ve been here for 35 years, received an MS from UF and am deeply embarrassed to even acknowledge I live here any more.”
Hey, Gary: so leave, already. Bus tickets are cheap. Pour those lattes faster and earn a few tips.
You wanna-be academics all too often forget that the taxpayers subsidize education hoping tangible benefits accrue to the entire state, not just the campuses. Bag on Mickey all you want, but at least Walt brought money and jobs to thousands of Floridians. The constant stream of sneering approbation from the faux-ivory towers of UF, directed towards the ‘anti-intellectual’ residents, who keep electing ‘morons,’ somehow falls short of being adjudged a tangible benefit by either group. How dare Florida’s administrators or legislators cut in a lean season?!?!? How subpar! How gauche!
It would serve the whole bunch of whiners right if the legislature proceeded to eviscerate UF into an FIT. Heck, Florida needs a publicly funded FIT anyway, far more than it needs coddled liberal arts uberspecialists and overpaid clerks posing as academic bureaucrats. Fiddle-dee-dee, whatever will they do, laid off at 50 or 60? I like to imagine they’ll go earn a living without taking their pay at the point of the gun from the state’s taxpayers. You know, by providing goods and services people voluntarily purchase, like those darn anti-intellectual morons must.
— Noam DePlume May 7, 01:24 AM #
Noam-
Wow. That’s brilliant. You’re absolutely right. Burn the books! Bring in the contentless online certification programs! Those “coddled liberal arts uberspecialists” are leaches on the system. Critical thinking just slows down democracy and keeps unrestrained business interests from blessing Florida with their presence.
Am I having this conversation on the “Chronicle of Higher Ed?” Jeesh.
— AL May 7, 08:39 AM #
Noam, most of us, I believe ARE academics, rather than “wanna-be” academics. A course in critical thinking or language skills, of course, would have taught you to avoid making such an embarrassing mistake.
The historians who study public higher education, actually, would probably say that states subsidize higher education primarily to combat classism and to make class mobility possible. How many thousands of people have money and jobs because of their college degrees? As a professor at Miami Dade, I am well aware of the difference even a 2-year college degree can make in a student’s life and earning potential.
That being said, the fact that a Bachelor’s degree is now essentially required for employment is not an accident, and did not happen at the whim of the academic institution. Employers decide they want people with higher education, not colleges and universities. If a college degree were effectively useless, as you seem to suggest, then why would employers continue requiring them? Wouldn’t it, in fact, benefit those employers to hire people, for less, without college degrees? And, furthermore, no one forces the several hundred thousand students to apply to and attend state colleges and universities. Those several hundred thousand students who freely chose to attend our institutions must be managed and educated.
I’m pretty sure “education” qualifies as a service. It’s at least as tangible a service as a banking account or other financial “product.”
— Sabrina May 7, 08:43 AM #
I wonder how proud Brighthouse Networks are, funding $12m to the UCF football stadium, while UCF cuts jobs programs to meet the politicians mess of so called tax management. Big stadiums, big money, all in the name of sport. Does this add any kudos to educational standerds? no just adds to egos and big business. Hey how about a Brighthouse boycott and use satelite, until they fund another $12m to the college to actually help education and the staff.
— blogit May 7, 09:34 AM #
Are Florida universities really short on money or are they just not using it in the wrong way?
http://media.www.centralfloridafuture.com/media/storage/paper174/news/ 2008/03/19/News/Ucf-Loans.An.Unaccounted.For.7.4.Million.To.Athletics.Without .A.Repayment .Schedu-3274048.shtml
— lwc May 7, 10:02 AM #
Every single one of the CLAS faculty laid off are in international and area studies — this is not a coincidence. UF is clearly regressing to be little more than a provincial, glorified junior college with a kick-ass sports industry. To think that Machen sold his puff-piece “we’re going to be a top-10 school” to the NYTimes a few months ago is beyond ironic.
By the way, on top of his $700k salary he recently received a $300k bonus.
— mc May 7, 08:43 PM #
Anyone who would like to comment on the elimination of the French PhD at UF may do so here:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/antes/Comments%20French%20PhD.html
— md May 10, 05:44 PM #
This is because Florida’s Governor Crist is a BIG IDIOT. He doesn’t think that funding education is important; K-20. He is helping to produce a generation of IDIOTS, just like himself. Look out, America – this jerk might be John “Super Jerk” McCain’s running mate. Let’s dumb down the country like Crist is dumbing down Florida!!!!
— Toggle May 10, 06:44 PM #
There can be little doubt that the reductions in state funding, while real enough, are being used as cover for carrying through an agenda that includes goals other than economizing. As has been pointed out, UF has resources it could tap, if it wished, long before being forced to lay off faculty and elminate programs in the humanities.
First, the administration regards the humanities as a necessary evil, with tenured and tenure-track professors whose research brings in no grant money and whose teaching could be done just as well by adjuncts, a form of casual labor. This is part of a national trend, of course, and all Gators should be proud that their “university” is in the vanguard.
Adjuncts are, of course, not only cheaper, but far more controllable. This brings me to the second thing that has gone unnoticed so far. The UF administration has a long record of attempting to bust the faculty union. A few years ago they nearly succeeded, and only the intervention of the courts thwarted them. Guess what: the philosophy department is among the most heavily unionized on campus and its faculty includes both the president of the state-wide union and the president of the local chapter.
— gypsy May 11, 10:24 AM #
In response to #38, I doubt that the targeting of the philosophy department, among others, has anything to do with the fact that two of the faculty members are officers in the faculty union. Not all members of the department are members of the union, and I don’t know that the proportion is higher than in other departments. In any case, eliminating the Ph.D. program in philosophy does not harm the union, but instead the university, so it would not be rational of anyone, even if he or she wanted to harm the union in some way, to attempt to do it by eliminating the Ph.D. in a core humanities department. All in all, the decision is quite strange, especially when one realizes that there will be no immediate savings. All current and new students are promised funding in the form of TAships (or fellowships) until they complete their degrees. So there is no savings for this coming year. There would be only an incremental savings the year after, and so on, until all current and entering students have finished, through 2013. At the end of five years, the total savings annually would amount to 0.24% of the college’s budget, a rounding error. It is worth noting that this will significantly reduce access to philosophy for undergraduates at UF, since teaching assistants are essential for running larger undergraduate lecture courses in particular, courses like introduction to philosophy, contemporary moral issues, and social and political thought. This assumes, however, that all money used to support TAs is eliminated from the department’s budget. However, the college has said it does not intend to eliminate the M.A. program. That suggests that they intend to provide continued funding for M.A. students, since otherwise it would not be possible to sustain even an M.A. program in philosophy (if one may assume that the relevant administrators have done their homework—perhaps not). But in that case, it is hard to see that there could be much savings, since the only savings to be obtained is from elimination of teaching assistants. Thus, the financial argument for eliminating the Ph.D. program appears extraordinarily weak. That leaves one to speculate what the motivation could be. Perhaps they did not think it through?
— KL May 12, 04:24 PM #
UF is one of THE financial drivers in the state. Criticize it all you want, but it has had a major positive impact in health care, business, engineering, the arts, and K-12 education. Its positive impact on the state has been completely disregarded by the legislature.
— Kyle David May 13, 04:44 PM #
I want to echo #24’s comment: UF does not value the humanities. However, there are ways of ensuring that programs in the humanities are valued, just as there are ways of inviting the elimination of programs. Failing to maintain a graduate program that actually yields PhDs in a timely and cost efficient manner is one way to accomplish the latter. My suspicion is that this is the motivation behind the elimination of the targeted doctoral programs.
— al May 13, 05:23 PM #