JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — UNF faculty is locked in a battle with the university’s board of trustees over the details of soon-to-be implemented five-year post-tenure reviews.
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Tenured faculty have long been subject to annual reviews, but later this fall, about one-fifth of them will be the first to undergo the new five-year post-tenure review process, which was just put into law earlier this year.
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Mark Halley with the UNF chapter of the United Faculty of Florida told Action News Jax the sticking point right now is a lack of employment protections for faculty that have been rated as effective in recent years.
“Our faculty are just really concerned that if they’ve been told they’re doing their job well year after year, how can you get to the end of that and then find out after five years you weren’t doing your job well?” Halley said.
The faculty union at UNF reports five percent of the university’s permanent faculty left in the last year.
That’s equivalent to the faculty losses in the prior five years combined.
Union leaders fear without securing employment protections in the five-year post-tenure review process the exodus could be compounded.
“The vast majority of faculty across the State of Florida are telling people outside of Florida this is not a place to come and work right now,” Halley said.
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1,000 had signed onto a petition supporting the employment protections for tenured faculty.
“Throughout our negotiations, we have agreed to implement significant protections for our faculty in the post-tenure review process,” UNF President Moez Limayem said in a letter sent to faculty Wednesday. “We will continue our cooperative and open lines of communication with UFF, and I remain hopeful in our ability to reach agreement on the remaining issues.”
Halley said additional opportunities for negotiations are expected over the coming days, but time is running out to come to a deal palatable for both parties.
“We have really great people who are engaging in cutting-edge research, leading students in amazing experiential learning experiences and the idea that they would lose some sort of job security, or we contribute to the exodus of faculty already leaving UNF and already leaving Florida, it would just have detrimental impacts,” Halley said.
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The UNF Board of Trustees is expected to vote on the five-year post-tenure review plan Monday.
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