Dear Dr. Bell,
As your November inauguration approaches, the UF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida would like to formally welcome you to the University of Florida. Over the coming years, our union, which represents over 2,000 faculty members across 10 colleges and nearly 100 departments and academic units, seeks to build a productive working relationship with you and your administration.
You are entering this role at a difficult moment. Public confidence in higher education is falling. The federal government has made steep and damaging cuts to research funding. State and federal officials are turning away the international scholars and students who have played a crucial, positive role in U.S. institutions for decades. And in Florida, lawmakers, bureaucrats and culture warriors have politicized higher education in unprecedented and devastating ways.
The results of these trends have been dire. Staff and faculty morale have plummeted, UF’s reputation has suffered and colleges and departments across the university have struggled to make do under a succession of interim leaders.
Still, faculty and staff have carried on the essential work of teaching, research and service.
To lead successfully in this difficult moment, you will need the support of faculty who have helped keep this university afloat through thick and thin. As our union’s motto goes, “UF works because we do.” But it works all the better when faculty members know their president is on their side. To earn our support, we call on you to focus on the following five priorities.
1. Support academic freedom and stand with faculty against politicized attacks
Since 2020, Florida institutions of higher learning have been the targets of a sustained, government-backed campaign to undermine academic freedom and transform education in ways that serve neither students nor the pursuit of knowledge.
From “Stop Woke” to “Viewpoint Diversity,” from “Countries of Concern” to the H-1B ban, from post-tenure review to state efforts to remake general education, the policies that make up this campaign reflect a shared vision. According to this vision, higher education professionals are dangerous ideologues, lazy freeloaders and foreign subversives bent on indoctrinating students and peddling lies — and who, for the greater good, must be brought to heel by the state.
Of course, this vision is a fabrication. But for Florida politicians building a national brand, it has proved a useful one. And, for the real dangerous ideologues in this state, it has offered a convenient excuse to suppress academic freedom and intimidate faculty members.
We do not, of course, expect a public university president to flaunt the law, no matter how odious, unjust or unconstitutional. But we do expect you to protect academic freedom and honor the letter of our Collective Bargaining Agreement. And we sincerely hope you will resist your predecessors’ tendencies to go above and beyond the letter of the law out of fear or a misplaced desire to curry favor with those above them.
2. Support marginalized faculty and students
The impacts of these attacks have not fallen equally on all members of the UF community. Instead, they have fallen disproportionately on international faculty, staff and students; on faculty, staff and students of color; and on LGBTQ+ faculty, staff and students.
The sources of these attacks are varied. The “Countries of Concern” law and the state’s recent ban on H-1B hiring have excluded many promising graduate students from UF, put an end to longtime research partnerships and left many international faculty, staff and students feeling afraid and unwelcome at their own university.
The UF Police Department’s cooperation agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has left international university community members and community members of color in a state of vigilance and fear. And all these groups have been subject to an ongoing moral panic about their identities, professionalism and scholarship.
We therefore call on you to do everything in your power to recognize and reward the outstanding contributions of international faculty, faculty of color and LGBTQ+ faculty — as well as their staff and student counterparts — to UF and its mission.
3. Support longtime UF faculty
In recent years, university administrators have devoted much of their energy to recruiting the best new faculty.
At the same time, administrators have accused longtime faculty of “quiet retiring.” They’ve developed a misguided brand of post-tenure review for disciplining senior faculty. And by refusing to consider market equity salary adjustments or cost-of-living pay increases, they’ve allowed longtime faculty members’ salaries to fall below market rate. As a result, many long-serving faculty members now feel neglected and unappreciated.
While we warmly welcome new faces to campus, we nevertheless hope you will recognize and reward the longtime faculty who, over many years of service, have helped make UF the institution it is today.
4. Restore the faculty voice in university decision-making
In recent years, faculty members’ role in university decision-making has been repeatedly undermined.
The post-tenure review process was implemented with negligible faculty input. State officials have abrogated our historical right to set curriculum standards, going so far as to draw up their own state-mandated sociology curriculum. The Florida Legislature has done everything in its power to destroy the unions that represent faculty at nearly every public institution of higher education. And, last year, the outgoing UF administration floated a proposal that would have ended the Faculty Senate’s ability to issue resolutions.
Meanwhile, big money donors — many with backgrounds in tech, finance and real estate — have exercised growing influence over the university.
As faculty at a public university, we are proud to share university governance with students, staff and elected representatives of the Florida public — even when we sharply disagree with those lawmakers and their actions. But we strongly oppose the concentration of power exclusively in the hands of lawmakers, wealthy donors and the Board of Trustees. We therefore call on you to resist this trend and help restore real shared governance at UF.
5. Repair a damaged relationship
Going forward, one of your most important tasks will be to mend the UF administration’s broken relationship with faculty. For too long, we’ve been treated like a problem rather than a partner — an unruly adversary to be silenced, sidelined or disciplined rather than a core part of the university community.
We hope you’ll bring big dreams for UF. But above all, we hope you’ll trust your faculty to do what’s best for the university’s educational and research mission. We’ve been advancing that mission for years in the face of adversarial administrations. Imagine what we could achieve for our students, our state and the world if we advanced together.
Sincerely,
Meera Sitharam, UFF-UF Co-President
Michelle Nolan, UFF-UF Co-President
Sean Trainor, UFF-UF Communications Chair
