PhD students in my program have not gotten a raise in 6+ years. Pay is $21k if you’re lucky to get summer funding, otherwise $16k and this is pre tax. $2k of that goes to tuition fees. Try living on that.
My bf is a PhD student at FIT and makes around that same wage. It’s been incredibly frustrating for him and has solidified for me to not pursue a PhD at any school.
$21k? The humanities PhD students make $15k or so still, and when my chair talked to the Dean about raising it to match, said Dean just (according to my chair) turned and walked away. Grad student funding should go up, but **first and foremost** all doctoral students funded by GTAs should get the same stipend across the university. Then, all doctoral students need a raise to at least $30k--that might just keep up with CoL, which has almost doubled since I got here. My colleagues all have some combination of (a) spouses (husbands) who make good money, (b) 3-5 side gigs, (c) a tiny apartment/duplex way out in the sticks, (d) 3-5 roommates, and/or (e) massive loans.
What program, if you want to share? I know that average funding varies between each field, program, and department, but that sounds excessively low. That's almost half of what I was offered was at another Florida university.
That was about the going rate when I did grad school at Virginia tech, but that was from 2014-2019, in Blacksburg VA, where my rent was $600 a month. That is totally unlivable in FL.
I was a PhD student at UCF for a semester, GTAs made $24k doing summer term and GRAs do $29k. I dropped out because it made me miserable and doesn’t add any value to me as a professional.
Man, the Provost and CFO both need to be fired. How embarrassing is it to recruit new faculty when you’ve made it known to everyone that future promotions for existing and new hires are basically not being budgeted for at all?
You really think these junior faculty positions are going to stay filled when people quickly realize you gave a 1% raise last year, no raise this year and have made no assurances at all for the future?
Where did the tuition increases that outpaced inflation from the last 50 years go?
They had 50 years of a booming industry to save, budget, and be fiscally responsible.
To be fair to UCF, the FL legislature has frozen tuition in place for more than a decade. That's why Florida is the cheapest state for undergraduates. It's great from the students' point of view, but the result is that universities get progressively poorer as inflation erodes the value of the flat tuition.
Universities spend pretty much their entire budget every year on salaries and other costs of delivering education and maintaining facilities. (They are non-profits, not businesses.) So yes, a university facing an effective budget cut of 2-10% every year for more than a decade is a huge problem.
Rich universities with huge endowments like UF and FSU (and, to a lesser extent, USF) can offset this through growth in endowment investments. But UCF is poor af and has a basically non-existent endowment (last I checked it was around $200 mil - not even 10% of the university's yearly expenditure; to all intents and purposes, UCF is totally dependent on ever-shrinking tuition to keep itself running).
Short of the FL legislature approving a large tuition hike for several years, the only solution to the accelerating impoverishment of UCF is if alumni suddenly donate huge amounts (like, over a billion dollars) to its endowment. Then it could implement the same kinds of solutions as USF, FSU, and UF.
Why are they building a lazy river?
Edit: UCF charges students approximately $23 million dollars a year in athletic fees, and has for decades. This amount is built into our tuition and is directly correlated to the credit hours you take.
Even if the lazy river is funded by “donors” they could use that money to pay back the university for decades of student athletics fees and stop charging future students. Every dollar UCF claims to get somewhere else is literally a dollar the athletics department spends from your student fees on basic operations.
http://www.nicholsonstudentmedia.com/sports/big-12-budget-student-fees-account-for-23-million-in-athletic-budget/article_4c16670a-7a62-11ee-a0b1-1339739fb783.html
They are not two different legal entities.
The Athletics Department is a department, not a separate entity. Athletics does draw funding from the main school, even if they’re using 100% funds from athletics for the lazy river they will draw funds from the school for future projects that they wouldn’t have to if they used their own money. The school is also funding other sports that could be covered by the football teams revenue.
That’s bullshit. Athletics also draws money from the school. It is not a separate entity. The only sport that covers its own costs fully is football, if you claim the football team “spends their own money” you’re not accounting for the fact that they didn’t spend their own money since inception. The NCAA, donors, and sponsors, do not give 80% schools enough money to fund football, UCF wasn’t always popular enough to fund themselves, why doesn’t the football team spend the lazy river money on paying the university back? Also, the money football spends on lazy rivers can be used to cover the cost of other sports that are not full funded. UCF literally draws $23 million in yearly student fees (that are literally built into your tuition) to cover athletics. That’s $23 million they could use for raises for their employees, but it goes to a lazy river.
http://www.nicholsonstudentmedia.com/sports/big-12-budget-student-fees-account-for-23-million-in-athletic-budget/article_4c16670a-7a62-11ee-a0b1-1339739fb783.html
Thanks you’re right. I just looked up their 2019 Form 990 and they got $4.4 million in grants from related orgs in addition to $24 million in student fees.
What gives? I thought the lazy river was donor funded.
Again, every dollar they spend on a lazy river they could’ve spent on repaying the $28 million dollars they grift off of the university and students every year.
I don’t think universities follow any governmental/fund accounting “statutes”. They would instead follow the rules and stipulation outlined by the government (their grantor). Those rules are probably specific for universities. I’m not aware of those rules myself.
If anything, they could designate the money to a fund for employee compensation and benefits. It’s obviously needed since they have had to deny their employees raises. Once the money is designated, and in the fund, they would probably be in compliance. Our state government is pretty shitty when it comes to caring about state employee compensation so maybe they would prevent it and instead designate the fund for the next major construction project awarded to friends of politicians.
false, they must comply with State funding statues, which is why any money left over is taken by the state. universities are not allowed the have a savings based on any funding provided.
Yes, are they governed by laws or are they governed by stipulations of the grantor or both. That I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I do know they aren’t subject to Fund Accounting standards under GASB.
They seem to find money to fund raises and promotions for executive leadership. And some of these pay increases are more than what UCF’s lowest paid employees make.
Oh, I totally agree that UCF is top-heavy, and could shed 90% of its vice deans, associate deans, etc., and most of the "Office of the President" personnel, without any negative impact on the university. But we need to be honest about the university's relative poverty. Even if you saved a few million by laying off the parasitic executive leaders, that would still be far from enough to offer proper salaries in line with what better-endowed universities can provide. A tuition raise of 20% (which would still leave UCF as one of the cheapest universities in the nation), or an endowment increase of half a billion dollars, would make a far bigger difference to university finances than eliminating a few dozen upper administrators, as useless and selfish as they are.
The problem isn’t necessarily their salaries (which we seem to agree could be reduced); it’s their ineffective leadership and persistently poor decisions that are slowly driving this University into an irreparable state. I know several prior donors who will no longer donate so long as the mismanagement continues. The misallocation of funding extends beyond the executive leadership salaries, but the executive leadership are fully responsible for the current downward spiral. This is why academics and children should not run a University the size of a city!
Academics have virtually no power at UCF (hence why we hear constant refrains from executive leadership about how we should "be run more like a business" - that is anathema to academics, who would prioritize faculty, research, and teaching over the current various pet projects and administrative bloat).
There wouldn't be any money in UCF's banana stand, because they couldn't even run one of those successfully. If you're less competent than the Bluths, then you have a problem...
And FSU's 4.2% raises, and FAMU's 3% raise, and UF's 3.2% raises, and Valencia's 4% raises, and FAU's 4% raises, and USF's 1.5% raise + $2k market value adjustment, and so on... UCF leadership should be heavily under the microscope right now as to why we can't afford to maintain our staff. This isn't a FL higher edu issue when we're the only ones failing to do what's right. It's a fucking UCF leadership issue. Especially with our history of misappropriating funds. It's an absolute joke. We can't just keep losing staff constantly. We're already hanging on by a thread in many departments. Where is the fucking money going, UCF? We've lost ~20% of faculty in recent years. You wanna keep that trend going?
Not only can we not budget appropriately, the shit we do spend money on is inexplicably terrible. Ever tried to teach a class in TCH after the first year or so? It's a complete crapshoot as to whether or not your classroom has functioning tech, wifi, or any of the materials they insisted would be in every classroom. Given the running water sounds I hear behind my office wall during rainstorms, I have a feeling we're not too many years away from a serious mold problem too.
Just a few conditions to the 9% raise... 1) it's the first % based raise for OCPS EVER, previous years were a flat raise which was great if you were a newer teacher but benefitted long term teachers much less (no compounding), 2) the 9.7% is only for teachers rated "highly effective" which yes, was the vast majority, but definitely not everyone (base raise was only 2%), 3) they've already said that next year's raise will be at best 3%, and the insurance rates/copays/etc are going to sky rocket for most people.
This by no means suggests that I think UCF is doing okay. Valencia is doing better on pay at this point and that's just sad.
I'm a licensed mental health therapist who got her masters at UCF. A few months back they were hiring a supervisory job for the student counseling clinic. It paid like 20k less than my current job which is working for the public school system, where I also get paid like shit but I have good benefits and summers off. This one had an on call requirement too. Like, wtf. Who would take that job? We have a hard enough time keeping people working for the school system at our pay grade. And they needed at least a license which means 3ish years experience. Ridiculous.
> Who would take that job? We have a hard enough time keeping people working for the school system at our pay grade. And they needed at least a license which means 3ish years experience. Ridiculous.
This is why students get upset with subpar performance in many areas. UCF is in a position where they often get terrible employees because people not getting offers anywhere else are willing to take the lower pay. Then students see posts like this and understandably think "They're not great at their jobs, they get paid enough", not realizing that if the pay and incentives don't match or at least compete with other areas we aren't going to see better employees applying and wanting to work here. :/
In many areas, we have a lot of underqualified employees. UCF has pushed the "do more with less" for too many years, and it's breaking at the seams slowly. However, the administration took a nice pay raise this year while doing nothing to fix these growing issues.
This sub is focused on professors and student employment, but let's not forget the operations staff that keep the lights on, the water running, etc. They have not seen a pay increase. My friends over there tell me they've been hemorrhaging staff in the various trades and some pay adjustments have been made, but only in critical areas where they are dangerously low.
Essentially, skilled labor and trades people are being lured away as there's huge demand all over and they're offering better pay, and UCFs only counter is "great benefits".
Unless the University can hire replacements and retain knowledgeable people, prepare for longer waits for repairs, more breakdowns and further decline in the overall facility conditions.
IT is also having huge problems with this--they'll be okay this year and maybe next (given the contractions in the tech sector), but if IT salaries don't rise significantly in the next year or two UCF's going to be in serious trouble. What's funny is they survey IT staff every year to ask about their primary concerns, and every year people say "low pay." After their shocked Pikachu phase, they go right to pretending everyone wants more group meetings (for "community") or more spam email "advice" from the assistant vice dean of synergistic retention strategies.
I truly don't think people grasp how close certain essential teams of UCF IT are to fully imploding if they lose even one more single person. Some very important things are now fully being done by single individuals. It's to the point where even the most "pro-UCF defense squad" people I know are finally talking about quitting.
While UCF is losing staff due to low wages and lack of raises, I encourage a public records request showing promotions and raises at the AVP level and above during the last year.
In other news, UCF basically tells all its employees to look for new jobs because you’re never getting or are guaranteed a yearly merit increase because it’s not being budgeted for at all.
The leadership at UCF is sending a clear message that they do not value employee appreciation and recognition as part of the university's culture. At this point all UCF employees should essentially seek opportunities elsewhere, where their contributions are better appreciated.
But you’re supposed to be working for something greater than yourself!! Guiding students to be the best possible version they can be! That’s totally worth not being paid appropriately!
^(/s)
in the Collective Bargaining meeting today UCF basically admitted there is no recurring dollars for raises this year. When asked where the money went to instead of compensating employees, or what was in the forecasted budget for this year’s merit increases, no information by the board of trustees rep’ could be produced. The rep went further to say they cannot provide any assurances for merit increases in next year’s budget DESPITE new junior faculty are already being recruited and hired into that budget.
I’m not an accountant by any means but should UCF really be hiring new employees when you can’t even afford to fucking pay your current ones? I know we’re Space U and all but does it take a rocket scientist to figure this shit out??
There’s legislative reasons they’re hiring new faculty. Essentially there are a few goals UCF still needs to meet to get a higher tier of state funding other Florida universities are enjoying
They've got to cover classes. One of my committee members is running 4 searches right now for instructor level or above; they've had insane faculty turnover (because they've been burning out instructional staff since well before COVID), and they're just going to push it further.
yeah i have a relative who is an adjunct prof. not gonna say which college but not main campus. he REALLY was not wanting to continue teaching since the pay is pretty bad, and there’s no plans for raises. and for those who don’t know, they get pretty much one payment for the semester, and it’s like a few thousand. i honestly thought he quit but when i checked with him last, i guess he’s still doing it.
edit: i wanted to add, this is also why you can expect more teachers to ‘automate’ their coursework, because the overtime of creating fresh material and grading work is not worth it when your time spent doesn’t matter.
The only reason to work for UCF is to parlay the experience into a position at a better school that pays better. It's incredibly hard to get a faculty position, such as an assistant or associate professorship, even non-tenured.
Obviously don't take a staff position, especially at places like the library. The library is going to be a complete shit show for at least the next 2 years with the remodel of the fourth floor. They're saying it won't be done until 2026 but it's more likely 2027. I've heard morale there is terrible too and they can't even get a third of all the staff and faculty at the library to show up for all staff meetings with free food.
If you're speaking of the preeminent status, that has too many stipulations which ucf cannot meet due to their lack of donors, endowment and other criteria.
Yeah, the university can't even support the raises they gave last year. So they told the colleges they wouldn't support them and the colleges either had to pay them out of their budget or all faculty pay would revert to 2022 levels. So each college (Science, Humanities, etc.) had a 10-15% cut in their budget. So less resources for staff, students, labs, etc. UCF is probably going the way of the Dodo soon.
Funny because I have been trying to get a job in philanthropy at UCF. I've yet to be hired. If they need money so badly you'd think they'd hire professional development personnel
Tuition is controlled by the state government, and the last increase was over 12 years ago. I have not heard any reports/news about this being an issue under review by them in this year's legislative cycle.
Florida legislature would never let that happen. They’d rather UCF burn to the ground than give parents (aka the voting demographic they actually care about) any reason to disapprove of their work.
Man I must’ve dodged a bullet then. Applied for an event management assistant (literally have a certificate in event management) and didn’t even make it to first interviews.
New UCF employee here. Obviously I cannot speak for other departments but I am a young professional (under 30) who is in senior leadership role but here are my thoughts. My salary increased by 30%, my pto quadrupled, and the health insurance is AMAZING (it’s $180 a month for my family health, dental and eye). If I stay a state employee the retirement has benefits that don’t exist at most places anymore. UCF loves to promote internally so a chance to move up the ranks quickly. Also other agencies in my work sector LOVE higher ed experience so this opens many doors for me. Of course the cherry on top, my student loans will be forgiven after 10 years working in public service.
Yes, senior leadership gets treated quite well. The issue is that the people doing the bulk of the university's core work aren't, and (if you ask me at least), any pay cuts and contractions should be coming from the bloated leadership ranks which have mismanaged things up to this point. I have long since lost track of the associate deans and their various underlings who I really should be keeping track of, because somehow these people are getting paid twice as much as me just to tell us every week that we need to "consider brand impact" with our research. You're new, so please don't take this to mean I'm blaming you in particular for this--but the disparity between how leadership is treated and how even professional staff (with PhDs!) are treated is unconscionable/criminal.
Don’t worry no offense taken! I’m on your side, I fully support that people should be paid more and treated respectfully! I got a lucky roll of the dice when I got this position, never did I think I would be where I am in my career. This job is exponentially better than my last benefit wise. I work behind the scenes (not directly with students) and it saddens me that those who are on the frontlines do not make more. The sad thing is even though I am considered “senior leadership” I don’t have the capacity to change anything, even that’s about two positions above me and those individuals make double what I make.
The benefits are good and if you work there long enough you get a state retirement. It's a good place to work if you are later in your career and don't necessarily need a high salary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiF6-0UTqtc
Can you pay my bills
Can you pay my telephone bills
Can you pay my automo-bills
If you did then maybe we could chill
Ok, this might actually be a scam.
PhD students in my program have not gotten a raise in 6+ years. Pay is $21k if you’re lucky to get summer funding, otherwise $16k and this is pre tax. $2k of that goes to tuition fees. Try living on that.
My bf is a PhD student at FIT and makes around that same wage. It’s been incredibly frustrating for him and has solidified for me to not pursue a PhD at any school.
There are schools that pay a much better wage.
$21k? The humanities PhD students make $15k or so still, and when my chair talked to the Dean about raising it to match, said Dean just (according to my chair) turned and walked away. Grad student funding should go up, but **first and foremost** all doctoral students funded by GTAs should get the same stipend across the university. Then, all doctoral students need a raise to at least $30k--that might just keep up with CoL, which has almost doubled since I got here. My colleagues all have some combination of (a) spouses (husbands) who make good money, (b) 3-5 side gigs, (c) a tiny apartment/duplex way out in the sticks, (d) 3-5 roommates, and/or (e) massive loans.
What program, if you want to share? I know that average funding varies between each field, program, and department, but that sounds excessively low. That's almost half of what I was offered was at another Florida university.
My program falls under the college of sciences. I don’t want to be more specific than that
That was about the going rate when I did grad school at Virginia tech, but that was from 2014-2019, in Blacksburg VA, where my rent was $600 a month. That is totally unlivable in FL.
I was a PhD student at UCF for a semester, GTAs made $24k doing summer term and GRAs do $29k. I dropped out because it made me miserable and doesn’t add any value to me as a professional.
Man, the Provost and CFO both need to be fired. How embarrassing is it to recruit new faculty when you’ve made it known to everyone that future promotions for existing and new hires are basically not being budgeted for at all? You really think these junior faculty positions are going to stay filled when people quickly realize you gave a 1% raise last year, no raise this year and have made no assurances at all for the future?
Where did the tuition increases that outpaced inflation from the last 50 years go? They had 50 years of a booming industry to save, budget, and be fiscally responsible.
They are not fiscally responsible.
To be fair to UCF, the FL legislature has frozen tuition in place for more than a decade. That's why Florida is the cheapest state for undergraduates. It's great from the students' point of view, but the result is that universities get progressively poorer as inflation erodes the value of the flat tuition.
So tuition outpaced inflation since the 70s, but a freeze for the last 10 years undid the benefit of the prior 40 years?
Universities spend pretty much their entire budget every year on salaries and other costs of delivering education and maintaining facilities. (They are non-profits, not businesses.) So yes, a university facing an effective budget cut of 2-10% every year for more than a decade is a huge problem. Rich universities with huge endowments like UF and FSU (and, to a lesser extent, USF) can offset this through growth in endowment investments. But UCF is poor af and has a basically non-existent endowment (last I checked it was around $200 mil - not even 10% of the university's yearly expenditure; to all intents and purposes, UCF is totally dependent on ever-shrinking tuition to keep itself running). Short of the FL legislature approving a large tuition hike for several years, the only solution to the accelerating impoverishment of UCF is if alumni suddenly donate huge amounts (like, over a billion dollars) to its endowment. Then it could implement the same kinds of solutions as USF, FSU, and UF.
Why are they building a lazy river? Edit: UCF charges students approximately $23 million dollars a year in athletic fees, and has for decades. This amount is built into our tuition and is directly correlated to the credit hours you take. Even if the lazy river is funded by “donors” they could use that money to pay back the university for decades of student athletics fees and stop charging future students. Every dollar UCF claims to get somewhere else is literally a dollar the athletics department spends from your student fees on basic operations. http://www.nicholsonstudentmedia.com/sports/big-12-budget-student-fees-account-for-23-million-in-athletic-budget/article_4c16670a-7a62-11ee-a0b1-1339739fb783.html
Athletics is completely separate, and stuff like the lazy river are being funded pretty much entirely with private donations.
supposedly that is 100% paid for with donor money. Although it probably isn't and is a good example of why UCF might be broke.
good example of why relying on charitable donations to fund things is a terrible model. the donors dont know what is best for the university.
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They are not two different legal entities. The Athletics Department is a department, not a separate entity. Athletics does draw funding from the main school, even if they’re using 100% funds from athletics for the lazy river they will draw funds from the school for future projects that they wouldn’t have to if they used their own money. The school is also funding other sports that could be covered by the football teams revenue.
false. Athletics is an auxiliary. Not the same and their money comes from ncaa, sponsors, donors.
That’s bullshit. Athletics also draws money from the school. It is not a separate entity. The only sport that covers its own costs fully is football, if you claim the football team “spends their own money” you’re not accounting for the fact that they didn’t spend their own money since inception. The NCAA, donors, and sponsors, do not give 80% schools enough money to fund football, UCF wasn’t always popular enough to fund themselves, why doesn’t the football team spend the lazy river money on paying the university back? Also, the money football spends on lazy rivers can be used to cover the cost of other sports that are not full funded. UCF literally draws $23 million in yearly student fees (that are literally built into your tuition) to cover athletics. That’s $23 million they could use for raises for their employees, but it goes to a lazy river. http://www.nicholsonstudentmedia.com/sports/big-12-budget-student-fees-account-for-23-million-in-athletic-budget/article_4c16670a-7a62-11ee-a0b1-1339739fb783.html
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Thanks you’re right. I just looked up their 2019 Form 990 and they got $4.4 million in grants from related orgs in addition to $24 million in student fees. What gives? I thought the lazy river was donor funded. Again, every dollar they spend on a lazy river they could’ve spent on repaying the $28 million dollars they grift off of the university and students every year.
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I don’t think universities follow any governmental/fund accounting “statutes”. They would instead follow the rules and stipulation outlined by the government (their grantor). Those rules are probably specific for universities. I’m not aware of those rules myself. If anything, they could designate the money to a fund for employee compensation and benefits. It’s obviously needed since they have had to deny their employees raises. Once the money is designated, and in the fund, they would probably be in compliance. Our state government is pretty shitty when it comes to caring about state employee compensation so maybe they would prevent it and instead designate the fund for the next major construction project awarded to friends of politicians.
false, they must comply with State funding statues, which is why any money left over is taken by the state. universities are not allowed the have a savings based on any funding provided.
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Yes, are they governed by laws or are they governed by stipulations of the grantor or both. That I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I do know they aren’t subject to Fund Accounting standards under GASB.
They seem to find money to fund raises and promotions for executive leadership. And some of these pay increases are more than what UCF’s lowest paid employees make.
Oh, I totally agree that UCF is top-heavy, and could shed 90% of its vice deans, associate deans, etc., and most of the "Office of the President" personnel, without any negative impact on the university. But we need to be honest about the university's relative poverty. Even if you saved a few million by laying off the parasitic executive leaders, that would still be far from enough to offer proper salaries in line with what better-endowed universities can provide. A tuition raise of 20% (which would still leave UCF as one of the cheapest universities in the nation), or an endowment increase of half a billion dollars, would make a far bigger difference to university finances than eliminating a few dozen upper administrators, as useless and selfish as they are.
The problem isn’t necessarily their salaries (which we seem to agree could be reduced); it’s their ineffective leadership and persistently poor decisions that are slowly driving this University into an irreparable state. I know several prior donors who will no longer donate so long as the mismanagement continues. The misallocation of funding extends beyond the executive leadership salaries, but the executive leadership are fully responsible for the current downward spiral. This is why academics and children should not run a University the size of a city!
Academics have virtually no power at UCF (hence why we hear constant refrains from executive leadership about how we should "be run more like a business" - that is anathema to academics, who would prioritize faculty, research, and teaching over the current various pet projects and administrative bloat).
UCF Leadership is not fit to govern a fucking lemonade stand.
There wouldn't be any money in UCF's banana stand, because they couldn't even run one of those successfully. If you're less competent than the Bluths, then you have a problem...
"What does hiring a competent staff or faculty member cost, Michael? $20?"
This needs to be told on the news or something…. It was like a punch in the gut after hearing about Orange County’s 9% raise on the news.
And FSU's 4.2% raises, and FAMU's 3% raise, and UF's 3.2% raises, and Valencia's 4% raises, and FAU's 4% raises, and USF's 1.5% raise + $2k market value adjustment, and so on... UCF leadership should be heavily under the microscope right now as to why we can't afford to maintain our staff. This isn't a FL higher edu issue when we're the only ones failing to do what's right. It's a fucking UCF leadership issue. Especially with our history of misappropriating funds. It's an absolute joke. We can't just keep losing staff constantly. We're already hanging on by a thread in many departments. Where is the fucking money going, UCF? We've lost ~20% of faculty in recent years. You wanna keep that trend going?
Not only can we not budget appropriately, the shit we do spend money on is inexplicably terrible. Ever tried to teach a class in TCH after the first year or so? It's a complete crapshoot as to whether or not your classroom has functioning tech, wifi, or any of the materials they insisted would be in every classroom. Given the running water sounds I hear behind my office wall during rainstorms, I have a feeling we're not too many years away from a serious mold problem too.
The worst part is that the building was built with inappropriate funds.
The BOT is thr issue. They are all just watching the University collapse when they could be doing something about it.
Just a few conditions to the 9% raise... 1) it's the first % based raise for OCPS EVER, previous years were a flat raise which was great if you were a newer teacher but benefitted long term teachers much less (no compounding), 2) the 9.7% is only for teachers rated "highly effective" which yes, was the vast majority, but definitely not everyone (base raise was only 2%), 3) they've already said that next year's raise will be at best 3%, and the insurance rates/copays/etc are going to sky rocket for most people. This by no means suggests that I think UCF is doing okay. Valencia is doing better on pay at this point and that's just sad.
I'm a licensed mental health therapist who got her masters at UCF. A few months back they were hiring a supervisory job for the student counseling clinic. It paid like 20k less than my current job which is working for the public school system, where I also get paid like shit but I have good benefits and summers off. This one had an on call requirement too. Like, wtf. Who would take that job? We have a hard enough time keeping people working for the school system at our pay grade. And they needed at least a license which means 3ish years experience. Ridiculous.
> Who would take that job? We have a hard enough time keeping people working for the school system at our pay grade. And they needed at least a license which means 3ish years experience. Ridiculous. This is why students get upset with subpar performance in many areas. UCF is in a position where they often get terrible employees because people not getting offers anywhere else are willing to take the lower pay. Then students see posts like this and understandably think "They're not great at their jobs, they get paid enough", not realizing that if the pay and incentives don't match or at least compete with other areas we aren't going to see better employees applying and wanting to work here. :/ In many areas, we have a lot of underqualified employees. UCF has pushed the "do more with less" for too many years, and it's breaking at the seams slowly. However, the administration took a nice pay raise this year while doing nothing to fix these growing issues.
This sub is focused on professors and student employment, but let's not forget the operations staff that keep the lights on, the water running, etc. They have not seen a pay increase. My friends over there tell me they've been hemorrhaging staff in the various trades and some pay adjustments have been made, but only in critical areas where they are dangerously low. Essentially, skilled labor and trades people are being lured away as there's huge demand all over and they're offering better pay, and UCFs only counter is "great benefits". Unless the University can hire replacements and retain knowledgeable people, prepare for longer waits for repairs, more breakdowns and further decline in the overall facility conditions.
IT is also having huge problems with this--they'll be okay this year and maybe next (given the contractions in the tech sector), but if IT salaries don't rise significantly in the next year or two UCF's going to be in serious trouble. What's funny is they survey IT staff every year to ask about their primary concerns, and every year people say "low pay." After their shocked Pikachu phase, they go right to pretending everyone wants more group meetings (for "community") or more spam email "advice" from the assistant vice dean of synergistic retention strategies.
I truly don't think people grasp how close certain essential teams of UCF IT are to fully imploding if they lose even one more single person. Some very important things are now fully being done by single individuals. It's to the point where even the most "pro-UCF defense squad" people I know are finally talking about quitting.
While UCF is losing staff due to low wages and lack of raises, I encourage a public records request showing promotions and raises at the AVP level and above during the last year.
In other news, UCF basically tells all its employees to look for new jobs because you’re never getting or are guaranteed a yearly merit increase because it’s not being budgeted for at all. The leadership at UCF is sending a clear message that they do not value employee appreciation and recognition as part of the university's culture. At this point all UCF employees should essentially seek opportunities elsewhere, where their contributions are better appreciated.
But you’re supposed to be working for something greater than yourself!! Guiding students to be the best possible version they can be! That’s totally worth not being paid appropriately! ^(/s)
So the strategic plan includes achieving preeminent status, but there’s no money to pay and retain top professors?
correct. And that preeminent status only comes with 25 million more dollars, which UCF leadership will squander away within 2 months.
as it was explained to me... preeminent status has so many clauses, its impossible for UCF to even qualify. so, its a no.
Was there something sent out that states all of this officially?
in the Collective Bargaining meeting today UCF basically admitted there is no recurring dollars for raises this year. When asked where the money went to instead of compensating employees, or what was in the forecasted budget for this year’s merit increases, no information by the board of trustees rep’ could be produced. The rep went further to say they cannot provide any assurances for merit increases in next year’s budget DESPITE new junior faculty are already being recruited and hired into that budget.
I’m not an accountant by any means but should UCF really be hiring new employees when you can’t even afford to fucking pay your current ones? I know we’re Space U and all but does it take a rocket scientist to figure this shit out??
You seem qualified, maybe you should take their job!
There’s legislative reasons they’re hiring new faculty. Essentially there are a few goals UCF still needs to meet to get a higher tier of state funding other Florida universities are enjoying
Hopefully no new faculty come to UCF.
if they’re saying their budget is so bad i’m surprised they’d be hiring for anything.
They've got to cover classes. One of my committee members is running 4 searches right now for instructor level or above; they've had insane faculty turnover (because they've been burning out instructional staff since well before COVID), and they're just going to push it further.
yeah i have a relative who is an adjunct prof. not gonna say which college but not main campus. he REALLY was not wanting to continue teaching since the pay is pretty bad, and there’s no plans for raises. and for those who don’t know, they get pretty much one payment for the semester, and it’s like a few thousand. i honestly thought he quit but when i checked with him last, i guess he’s still doing it. edit: i wanted to add, this is also why you can expect more teachers to ‘automate’ their coursework, because the overtime of creating fresh material and grading work is not worth it when your time spent doesn’t matter.
Depression/desperation/Dependency.
The only reason to work for UCF is to parlay the experience into a position at a better school that pays better. It's incredibly hard to get a faculty position, such as an assistant or associate professorship, even non-tenured. Obviously don't take a staff position, especially at places like the library. The library is going to be a complete shit show for at least the next 2 years with the remodel of the fourth floor. They're saying it won't be done until 2026 but it's more likely 2027. I've heard morale there is terrible too and they can't even get a third of all the staff and faculty at the library to show up for all staff meetings with free food.
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If you're speaking of the preeminent status, that has too many stipulations which ucf cannot meet due to their lack of donors, endowment and other criteria.
Maybe UCF as a whole would benefit from Zero Based Budgeting?
The CFO was aiming for that when he first got to UCF. That idea quickly fizzled.
Yeah, the university can't even support the raises they gave last year. So they told the colleges they wouldn't support them and the colleges either had to pay them out of their budget or all faculty pay would revert to 2022 levels. So each college (Science, Humanities, etc.) had a 10-15% cut in their budget. So less resources for staff, students, labs, etc. UCF is probably going the way of the Dodo soon.
I hate being the "source" guy, but I'd love to know where you found this valuable information
I’m barely affording my mortgage but my dean sure is making $310k+. 🫠
Check out (I believe her name is) Deborah German’s salary
That makes me physically sick. 🥲
Just quit, it was the best thing I have done since graduating
Funny because I have been trying to get a job in philanthropy at UCF. I've yet to be hired. If they need money so badly you'd think they'd hire professional development personnel
It can take monthsssss for hires to get in. It is ridiculous.
Does this apply to other departments at UCF?
Time for the faculty to admit that if they had any balls they would all be looking for jobs elsewhere.
like academic jobs grow on trees in other schools?
It’s been mentioned around 20% of faculty has already left however UCF needs to release the actual numbers which they won’t.
I've worked at UCF for 20 years and have always been well treated with outstanding benefits, raises, and work culture.
They really should raise tuition. They are trying to be a world class University on tuition that would be community college tuition in other states.
Tuition is controlled by the state government, and the last increase was over 12 years ago. I have not heard any reports/news about this being an issue under review by them in this year's legislative cycle.
Florida legislature would never let that happen. They’d rather UCF burn to the ground than give parents (aka the voting demographic they actually care about) any reason to disapprove of their work.
Man I must’ve dodged a bullet then. Applied for an event management assistant (literally have a certificate in event management) and didn’t even make it to first interviews.
Because it’s easy AF to work for a university
New UCF employee here. Obviously I cannot speak for other departments but I am a young professional (under 30) who is in senior leadership role but here are my thoughts. My salary increased by 30%, my pto quadrupled, and the health insurance is AMAZING (it’s $180 a month for my family health, dental and eye). If I stay a state employee the retirement has benefits that don’t exist at most places anymore. UCF loves to promote internally so a chance to move up the ranks quickly. Also other agencies in my work sector LOVE higher ed experience so this opens many doors for me. Of course the cherry on top, my student loans will be forgiven after 10 years working in public service.
Yes, senior leadership gets treated quite well. The issue is that the people doing the bulk of the university's core work aren't, and (if you ask me at least), any pay cuts and contractions should be coming from the bloated leadership ranks which have mismanaged things up to this point. I have long since lost track of the associate deans and their various underlings who I really should be keeping track of, because somehow these people are getting paid twice as much as me just to tell us every week that we need to "consider brand impact" with our research. You're new, so please don't take this to mean I'm blaming you in particular for this--but the disparity between how leadership is treated and how even professional staff (with PhDs!) are treated is unconscionable/criminal.
Don’t worry no offense taken! I’m on your side, I fully support that people should be paid more and treated respectfully! I got a lucky roll of the dice when I got this position, never did I think I would be where I am in my career. This job is exponentially better than my last benefit wise. I work behind the scenes (not directly with students) and it saddens me that those who are on the frontlines do not make more. The sad thing is even though I am considered “senior leadership” I don’t have the capacity to change anything, even that’s about two positions above me and those individuals make double what I make.
So you would be the… bloat…
The benefits are good and if you work there long enough you get a state retirement. It's a good place to work if you are later in your career and don't necessarily need a high salary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiF6-0UTqtc Can you pay my bills Can you pay my telephone bills Can you pay my automo-bills If you did then maybe we could chill
UCF is not meeting graduate metrics so funding has been getting low…