UF educational psychology assistant professor David Therriault was officially reinstated to his position Monday after he received a layoff notice in July 2009.
In a hearing held June 28 at Emerson Alumni Hall, arbitrator Tom Young decided Therriault was unjustly laid off because university administration did not attempt to find him an alternative position within the department of educational psychology or the College of Education and deemed him ineligible to apply for tenure.
Both are violations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
"The university is supposed to make an active effort to find him another position, but instead they chose to ignore this part of the agreement," said Candi Churchill, service unit director at the United Faculty of Florida.
United Faculty of Florida, an organization that represents graduate employees and faculty throughout Florida universities, spoke on behalf of Therriault at the hearing.
The university cited adverse financial circumstances as the reason he was laid off.
Between 2008 and 2009, $100 million was cut from UF's budget, said UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes.
"There are thousands and thousands of faculty on this campus and the university was facing a severe budget deficit," she said. "There's no good way to make the cuts that we made, and unfortunately there were some decisions to make layoffs."
Therriault, however, had an almost $1 million external grant from the National Science Foundation.
Furthermore, a briefing filed by Churchill reads that the College of Education continued to hire tenure-track faculty and post open positions after Therriault was laid off.
"From my position, if this is a budgetary issue, the university should have a hiring freeze," Churchill said.
Therriault continued working during the past year.
"My responsibility is to my students and to my research and I take those things pretty seriously," he said. "I am very happy with the results and to be able to get back to work and not be distracted by all this."
He plans to apply for tenure, and the university has already stated it will comply.
