Tag Archives: Florida

Minority losses at universities since Florida ended affirmative action

Orlando Sentinel: 10 years in, ‘One Florida’ posts mixed results for minorities at universities

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush pushed plan as ‘race-neutral’ replacement for affirmative action

Ten years after Florida banned affirmative-action admissions, minority enrollment in the State University System hasn’t kept pace with the number of minorities graduating from high school, an Orlando Sentinel analysis has found.

In 1999, a bit more than 20 percent of the state’s high-school graduates were black, as were 17.5 percent of university freshmen. By 2008, the last year for which a racial breakdown is available, blacks accounted for 19.5 percent of high-school graduates — but only 14.9 percent of university freshmen.

Similarly, in 1999, Hispanics made up 14.7 percent of high-school graduates and 13.8 percent of university freshmen. By 2008, Hispanics were 21.4 percent of graduates and 19.1 percent of the freshmen class, a wider gap.

By contrast, white and Asian students were overrepresented among college freshmen in 1999 — and still were in 2008, according to the Sentinel’s analysis. For example, white students comprised roughly 60 percent of high-school graduates and university freshmen in 1999; by 2008, they were 54 percent of high-school graduates — and 58 percent of university freshmen.

Union updates

Philadelphia Inquirer: Temple says faculty stalling contract talks
Temple University has filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint against the faculty union, accusing it of failing to continue negotiating a contract because of disagreement over union membership fees.

Socialist Worker: Contract fight at Manhattan School of Music
NEW YORK–After winning a hotly contested union certification battle in May, some 150 teachers of the Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-college Division–all of whom are trained as classical or jazz musicians–will enter into collective bargaining negotiations with the administration this fall.

South Coast Today: Faculty union and administration not on same page at UMass Dartmouth
When the fall semester begins at UMass Dartmouth next week, it won’t just be the physics students who will be getting a lesson in friction. The university’s administration and largest professional union aren’t seeing eye to eye over the most recent round of budget cuts and consolidations and, almost to a person, faculty and staff describe the situation as “tense” and “confusing.”

Hartford Courant: UConn Rattled By Union Drive For Doctors
Doctors are getting nervous about changes in health care, too, especially the ones at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. Everybody’s on edge as the health center administration adopted a dangerous strategy against the doctors when it distributed an e-mail Thursday seeking to impede a movement by doctors to form a union.

Sudbury Star: LU reaches deal with non-faculty staff union
Laurentian University reached a tentative agreement with the union representing about 250 non-faculty staff on Sunday morning.

Sun Journal: Union, USM may have agreement
LEWISTON – One of four unions working without a contract for the University of Maine System has reached a tentative agreement on a new deal.

Sun-Sentinel: Brogan, FAU faculty union duke it out to governor
Florida Atlantic University President Frank Brogan’s relationship with the faculty union isn’t improving much in his final weeks in office. Brogan, who plans to leave FAU by mid-September to become chancellor of the state university system, sent a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist saying he’s “disappointed by the level of vitriol,” that United Faculty of Florida has expressed on its blog.

India Express: IIT, IIM faculty to get better pay
The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the revision of pay scales of faculty, design, scientific and other academic staff of the centrally funded institutions including IITs and IIMs with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006.

Indiana Daily Student: IU officials decide to continue with employee bonus plan
IU will continue with its plan to distribute up to $500 per person to faculty and staff making less than $30,000 a year despite a meeting between IU officials and union leaders July 31.

San Diego News Network: California Budget Crisis Diaries: Lawsuit targets Schwarzenegger
Legislative leaders may be out for summer session but their vacation can’t be too sunny. The cuts throughout the budget – which was signed into law July 28 – are gradually sinking in. Some agencies still don’t understand the impacts, while others continue to receive IOUs, and now, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is facing a lawsuit.

San Francisco Chronicle: Execs still get raises as UC cuts staffing, pay
On the same July day that the UC Board of Regents cut $813 million from UC budgets – setting in motion pay cuts, layoffs and campus cutbacks – the board quietly approved pay raises, stipends and other benefits for more than two dozen executives.

The Crimson: FAS Cuts Janitor Hours
School officials say the moves save jobs, but union calls reductions ‘drastic,’ ‘unnecessary’
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences implemented work hours reductions for over 100 janitors in July—a move that FAS officials say will help cut costs while avoiding layoffs, but union representatives say will devastate worker living standards.

Fla. Community College President Indicted

Inside Higher Ed: Fla. Community College President Indicted

When allegations first surfaced last year about possible conflicts of interest involving state funds earmarked for Northwest Florida State College and its award of a job to a prominent state legislator who arranged for the money, the college’s president, Bob Richburg, angrily distinguished the situation from recent scandals in Alabama’s community college system that had led to resignations and even criminal charges.

Florida: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

Tallahassee Democrat: Faculty complaint exposes unrest at Chipola College

MARIANNA — An obscure labor-law complaint filed by nursing professors at Chipola College has exposed simmering unrest among faculty members at the little campus in the tall-pine country of Florida’s Panhandle.

“They used to get paid the same for doing the same work,” said Tom Brooks, a Tallahassee attorney for the United Faculty of Florida. “Now they have to work a lot more to earn the same.”

Chipola faculty representatives say there’s “an ol’ boy network” that pays handsome salaries to an influential current state legislator and another former lawmaker who serve as roving ambassadors for the college president.