When South Florida Community College President Norman Stephens received an unexpected letter from Gov. Rick Scott in March asking for Stephens’ opinion on a controversial proposal championed in Texas to dramatically change how universities and colleges are funded, and professors are awarded tenure and pay raises, he wasted no time registering his opposition.
“The action steps in the Texas model represent statewide overreach to an extraordinary degree,” Stephens wrote in an April letter to Scott. He urged Scott to keep decisions on university and college administration at the local level.
Beginning six months ago, Scott sent letters to the presidents of Florida’s public colleges and universities and asked for their opinion of a proposal pushed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
The proposal called the “Seven Breakthrough Solutions,” focuses mostly on changing how faculty are paid, awarded tenure, and their teaching load. It places a greater emphasis on tracking professor performance.
In the months since Scott alerted universities and colleges to his interest, he has received several formal responses from Florida’s college and university presidents, ranging from outright alarm to guarded enthusiasm. The letters offer a glimpse into which colleges or universities plan to fight or embrace the controversial proposal.
Those reactions could help shape whatever reform Scott eventually pitches as part of his legislative agenda. Scott is expected to unveil his legislative agenda soon and one if his highest priorities is thought to be higher education reform.
The letters obtained by the News Service of Florida are from the South Florida Community College, Florida State College in Jacksonville, the University of West Florida and the University of Central Florida. He has also received a letter in July from the head of the Council of College Presidents urging more dialogue.
Florida State College President Steven Wallace told Scott that his school has already implemented reforms similar to the ones in the Texas proposal. Wallace said he has established performance pay, put “substantial limits” on tenure eligibility, and “elevated attention” to student satisfaction and faculty productivity.
Wallace made a point of telling Scott that all of these changes were approved by the faculty union.
At South Florida Community College, in Avon Park, Stephens said he had “many, many concerns,” about the Texas proposal in an interview with the News Service of Florida on Monday.
“The first thing that comes to my mind is it’s ridiculous, in my opinion, to base any decision regarding compensation strictly on a student’s evaluation of faculty,” Stephens said. The Texas plan would allow student evaluations to play a much greater role in determining bonus pay and tenure.
“It is a very complicated issue, how you judge the effectiveness of faculty members, and to base it so much on that issue is a terrible over-simplification,” Stephens said.
University of Central Florida President John Hitt told Scott that the university already offers bonus pay of $5,000 for “productive” teachers and said student evaluations are “important factors” in awarding tenure or promotion.
He also took notice of the Texas plan’s suggestion to offer state funds to students through vouchers that can be used at public and private universities, rather than giving a state appropriation to the institution directly.
“It seemed to me that in our Bright Futures program we have something of a proxy for that idea,” Hitt said. “All institutions want and compete for more of the better-qualified students.”
Other presidents have offered their own indirect responses to Scott’s ideas. Florida State University President Eric Barron is the only president to offer an actual counter-proposal at a recent board of trustees meeting that he plans to eventually take to Scott.
Barron called it the “Florida plan,” taking many of the ideas in the Texas plan, such as greater emphasis on teaching and giving more power to student evaluations, and tried to make it more palatable to faculty and administrators.
By Lilly Rockwell
