Faculty leader Tim Boaz (left) complained that the university is “proceeding at full speed” on budget cuts without a strategic plan. Board of Trustees Chair Jordan Zimmerman said the university must “pay our bills on a go-forward basis.”
Courtesy of USF
By Nancy McCann
Several USF trustees assured faculty leaders Tuesday that the board and administration will be more open as the university plans for the future amid huge budget cuts.
But the trustees did not explicitly agree with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee’s urgent request to slow things down.
“You have our attention,” trustees Chair Jordan Zimmerman said. “But we also have the responsibility to the university and its well-being, not only for today, but in the future.
“This is really about maintaining our cash flow and being able to pay our bills on a go-forward basis.”
The meeting was prompted by a six-page memo sent to the trustees by the executive committee last week to express “serious concerns” about the way the university is making decisions about “enormous” budget cuts.
The memo, which was supported by the full Faculty Senate in a 63-3 vote, asked the trustees to “pause the process” for deciding on cuts and layoffs to allow time for transparency and faculty input.
The state has told each of Florida’s 12 public universities to plan for an 8.5 percent budget reduction – which for USF would be $36.7 million – this fiscal year, with an even deeper cut of 10 percent likely in the 2021-2022 fiscal year.
Faculty Senate President Tim Boaz, who also serves on the Board of Trustees, said during Tuesday’s meeting that cutting the budget has “unfortunately proceeded at full speed without the benefit of a strategic plan to guide it” and absent much-needed consultation with faculty.
Several senate members spoke up.
Deanna Michael, a professor and department chair in the College of Education and former trustee, said that plans during consolidation of the three campuses were presented in a “top-down situation – ignoring all the processes that have been developed over the years.”
Now, she said, the same thing is happening again.
“Now we have backtracked and a lot of faculty input is going on – but not on Oct. 14, when it was announced that the College of Education would cease to exist and would become a school and would be under another college,” Michael said. “It was shocking to everybody at the meeting.”
Richard Manning, a philosophy professor, said that the faculty had been “completely blindsided” by the College of Education announcement.
Earlier in Tuesday’s meeting, USF President Steve Currall said that the administration would be “redoubling our efforts” in transparency and “shared governance.” But Manning countered that “faculty do not feel that the administration has been transparent at all.”
Several trustees said that university leaders need to do better.
Trustee Michael Carrere said that “maybe some of the financial issues haven’t been explained enough.”
Trustee Stephanie Goforth said “there’s no excuse for us not to listen.”
Some of the strongest words came from trustee Nancy Watkins.
“We talk the talk. I want to make sure we do always walk the walk,” she said. “We need the faculty walking alongside the board and administration at every step at this university.
“We have had communication problems, whether it’s this instance or the College of Education – as a trustee I found out about it in public communications,” she said. “But what I want all the trustees to acknowledge is . . . we have got to stop some of these injuries before they occur.”
One of the faculty’s fears is that lack of strategic planning will cause long-term damage to the university.
Boaz said it’s important to “decouple COVID-19 from more permanent” issues.
“We don’t want permanent cuts to solve a temporary problem,” he said. Faculty Senate Executive Committee members and trustees will continue their discussion on Friday.
