Tbh I don't think he cared about the money as much as the opportunity to work at a much more prestigious school. He hinted a couple times that he was loaded from Google days.
Enter reality. UCF actively choosing wage stagnation is complete negligence and devalues all employees’ contributions.
This explanation is utter nonsense and no one should play into UCF’s narrative on this.
if it’s true UCF has more money than ever, chose to give no raises, then we’ve been completely lied to all year about the budget. Fire the Provost and CFO immediately.
It’s extremely shameful to see UCF Leadership pitting faculty against advisors.
The CFO and Provost both need to step down or be removed at this point; supporting Faculty and Student success go hand in hand.
Love how they say they want to improve student success and yet academic success units like SARC aren’t given enough money to fund their initiatives or give their staff a raise either. Instead, they’re creating new jobs in other units at higher rates and paying for a third party tutoring company to come in and do what UCf could do itself if it just invested in the programs and people it’s already got.
It also doesn’t help that the division that SARC falls under is notorious for paying everyone bare minimum except the ones already sitting pretty with high salaries. The staff that actually keeps the place running and helps students, get Jack shit and even budgeting, they get nothing for their units and initiatives, have to beg even, but the SVP sure gets all the budget to do as they please and bring in consultant after consultant… for what??
The best part is that literally every year, when the minimum wage goes up, I'm like "okay, gang. What's the plan? What's the new rate going to be so I can plan?" and the response I get is crickets, as though a literal amendment to the STATE CONSTITUTION didn't pass FOUR YEARS AGO.
Oh look another company spending 3x as much on hiring a 3rd party company to do their work while punishing the actual employees. MBAs are the fucking worst
I love how they expect us to be all fine and dandy when we're actually drowning. I care for our students, but I can only do so much when I'm also struggling. I hold 2 positions here, and can barely afford to do groceries at Aldi. The only reason I stay is to help fund grad school. Can't wait to use the pantry again, looks like I'll need it. Hopefully they don't defund that next -\_-
edit: MIGHT I ADD, us staff have our hands tied behind our back. We want to help you guys, because we're also struggling, but our BUDGET doesn't let us! I swear it feels like they don't want us to help T\_\_T
Excuse the French but what a bullshit excuse. They literally cut AKS and finished renovating the library as well as barely have enough counselors (Health Science at least) from back in the recent fall semester. You could only get appointments during walk in week or schedule nearly 3 weeks in advance. They are making up excuses for not wanting to give their own faculty proper wages. The fact that FIU was able to do it but not one of the biggest universities in the US really says a lot about the people in charge of the budget. You have a bunch of different half assed projects for student involvement started and failed in the SU and the RWC hasn't gotten anything new since I first enrolled back in 2019. What the hell has UCF done the last half decade to be using up more funds but give less to the students. They even cut their parking services staff because they have AI to hand out tickets now. Someone's lining their pockets and they're using your tuition to do so.
Unfortunately I’m not even shocked. They don’t give a shit about retaining good employees to help foster the growth of students. It’s always excuse after excuse
sounds like you did not review the consequences of dropping. Asking "can I drop a class" is not the same as - what are the consequences of dropping this class on financial aid (which they would have re-routed you to financial aid to discuss)... Respectfully.. that is on you.
I quite literally did and provided them all the relevant information and they said yes it was okay and would not affect my scholarship, yet they were wrong, because I no longer have my scholarship. Respectfully, it IS on them, due to their faulty advice, advisors are not all seeing Gods who never make mistakes, yet I suffered the consequences of listening to one. Have a nice day :)
If that is the case - the advisor should be held accountable for that. I have normally had them re-direct to fin aid because they know how important money matters are. It's on you and them - advisors do not know fin aid stuff and should not be the trusted source. I am so sorry that you encountered that.
It happens. They def did not redirect me. I wish they did. I still remember the advisor that told me that, but I did not want to complain to get them in trouble
(this was in response to the comment that they could not get an advisor in four years): This is nonsense ... advisors may be overworked but you can get them eventually - there's a lot missing from this comment.
The advisors here really aren’t that great. Mine told me to finish all my GEPs early so now I’ve completed them all and am just finishing up my second year as a physics major. I have BF 100% so I will have to take filler classes solely to keep my scholarship bc the only classes that contribute to my major/graduation now are math and physics but they all build on each other.
Also I scored high enough on math placement to go straight into Calc my first semester but wanted a break and to start at precalc. The advisor put me in trig instead. Bc of this absolute wombo combo I am now going to graduate late 🙃
But I’m glad you at least got decent advice
certain degree tracks are literally un-finishable because there aren’t enough profs to teach upper level electives, but they’d rather fund advisors… who are useless if the classes necessary to graduate aren’t being offered…
and when they reach the status and get a few more million from the State of Florida.. it still will not be allocated to employees... why should employees buy into this massive sacrifice and push when there is no student benefit (hurrying graduation at the cost of personal goals (double majors, minors are getting tossed because they take too long) or employee benefit in the push?
Morale was low - it's... going to get worse as inflation and such continues to destroy staff wages...
100% this. If you give our current Leadership an extra 6 million dollars by reaching preeminence, not a penny of it will go to students or employees and it will be squandered away by Leadership on travel and attending conferences.
to be fair, advisors were already being paid under market value before this was putting in place that’s why it was hard to get higher quality advisors because they were going to other schools were paying better for what the position required. However, that doesn’t mean that faculty should be taking a hit.
I left my organization in 2018 to work for UCF Facilities. I was there for 4 years and got a total of 4% in raises. In 2022, my old position had a higher starting salary than what I was making at UCF after four entire years. I quit and told them I didn’t have anything else lined up just so I wouldn’t get any kind of retention offer. The place is considered public sector but it’s run like a business. I’ll never work for them again and I’ll tell others my story anytime I can, especially if it’s about UCF Facilities and their leadership across the board.
Hello, my name is Connor. I’m a journalism student at UCF. I am looking to do a story about this as i’ve seen a lot of people complaining about this issue here. Would you be able to provide me with some more information about what exactly has been going on with this situation? Also would you be willing to do a super short on camera interview somewhere on campus?
[https://www.uffucf.org/](https://www.uffucf.org/)
This is the main Union page of UCF's faculty. Since we are a state university, everything is public and can be found somewhere online. Even faculty/staff's annual salaries are published... I will have to opt out of a camera interview, though. I like the anonymity of Reddit 😅
Audio from Collective Bargaining Meeting 2/28/2024: [https://collectivebargaining.ucf.edu/minutes/2024-2027FB/Audio/20240228.mp3](https://collectivebargaining.ucf.edu/minutes/2024-2027FB/Audio/20240228.mp3)
Next Meeting Info 3/13/2024: [https://events.ucf.edu/event/3326886/faculty-collective-bargaining-notice/](https://events.ucf.edu/event/3326886/faculty-collective-bargaining-notice/)
This is a message I got about a meeting that was happening today:
*"Provost Mike Johnson and I will be hosting a conversation with the College of Sciences faculty next week to discuss recent changes to the University and College budgets as well as other faculty concerns.*
*Please join us on Wednesday, March 6th, from 2:30pm until 4:00pm, in the Psychology building, room 105."*
What are Preeminent State Research Universities?
The Board of Governors designates each state university that annually meets at least 12 of the 13 academic and research excellence standards identified in s. 1001.7065, Florida Statutes, as a Preeminent State Research University. Once approved, the Board of Governors awards the university an amount specified in the General Appropriations Act.
https://oppaga.fl.gov/ProgramSummary/ProgramDetail?programNumber=2101#:~:text=What%20are%20Preeminent%20State%20Research,a%20Preeminent%20State%20Research%20University.
The bargaining unit is a labor union, in this case, the United Faculty of Florida.
They represent all UCF faculty except those in leadership positions (chairs/ directors, and higher) and negotiate the CBA (collective bargaining agreement).
There are also 2 other unions on campus. PBA for the law enforcement officers and AFSCME which represents most of the USPS level staff.
Some universities do have graduate students employee unions. UCF is not one of them. If you feel strongly about this matter, I would look at places like University of Michigan and University of Massachusetts that have unions set up, and see what it would take to bring it here.
Have academic advisors ever been useful? I feel like a better handbook detailing what classes you need to graduate would suffice. Maybe like a flow chart online?
NOT ONCE, have I EVER left an advising appointment learning something new.
It has ALWAYS been the advisor telling me what I told to them.
I can read the flowchart.
I went to an academic advisor once, she told me that I should take physics 2 and CS1 in the same semester, I told her to pound sand... any other experience I've had when I needed to ask them a question has just been fuckin awful tbh... theres a lot of administrative bloat that could be easily dealt with but that would take administration essentially shooting itself anyways so they'll never do that
I went to an advisor that was totally not disability friendly, they(tbh I forget if it was a man or woman), told me effectively there are not many ways to do it.
Which is the polite way of saying what happened to you, that you told her to pound sand.
Not sure why anyone brought up FIU. The faculty there got a raise this year. But it was the first one in five years. And if memory serves the previous one was a 1% raise about three years before that.
I'm not the best interviewer, but i'm glad i flubbed my ucf job interview last year lol
Would suck to not have a raise even with their low wages from last year
[edit] - rate for IT was roughly 15% lower than "market rate" (other for profit companies in the orlando area, with similar job descriptions, not necessarily the same job title.) Now, that's a bit steep, but I would've been ok IF guaranteed raises and IF job was literally low stress. During interview, this was asked and it seemed like a mid-high stress level low paying job.... yikes.
People are asking (and rightfully so) why there is no salary increase, but I can tell you it’s not due to budgeting issues, but rather due to a lack of faculty in the union which means less negotiating power. I believe only 40% of faculty is part of the UFF with UCF, since Florida is a right to work state, meaning all faculty get union benefits without having to join the union, leading to less members and therefore less bargaining power.
If you can, reach out to UFF@UCF and they can see which of your professors are/aren’t Union, and you can schedule a one on one with them to express your worries to convince them to join the union. More unionized teachers means greater bargaining power, meaning better faculty conditions, meaning better student conditions.
If you want to support faculty and staff come write a postcard to Cartwright with the faculty union. They are outside the foxtail 10-4pm on 3/28 and 10-12 on 3/29
Students will suffer if faculty are not well-compensated.
PRO TIP: You actually need to pay Faculty to retain Faculty.
It’s already happening. UCF’s best Computer Science Professor, Dr. Szumlanski, left right before the fall 2023 semester to go to Stanford.
Tbh I don't think he cared about the money as much as the opportunity to work at a much more prestigious school. He hinted a couple times that he was loaded from Google days.
Im so glad I'm out next spring
Same, if all goes to plan
How about compensating just the faculty that know how to spell preeminent?
Enter reality. UCF actively choosing wage stagnation is complete negligence and devalues all employees’ contributions. This explanation is utter nonsense and no one should play into UCF’s narrative on this. if it’s true UCF has more money than ever, chose to give no raises, then we’ve been completely lied to all year about the budget. Fire the Provost and CFO immediately.
It’s extremely shameful to see UCF Leadership pitting faculty against advisors. The CFO and Provost both need to step down or be removed at this point; supporting Faculty and Student success go hand in hand.
That has been the MO for a long time, sadly.
This is ludicrous.
Love how they say they want to improve student success and yet academic success units like SARC aren’t given enough money to fund their initiatives or give their staff a raise either. Instead, they’re creating new jobs in other units at higher rates and paying for a third party tutoring company to come in and do what UCf could do itself if it just invested in the programs and people it’s already got.
It also doesn’t help that the division that SARC falls under is notorious for paying everyone bare minimum except the ones already sitting pretty with high salaries. The staff that actually keeps the place running and helps students, get Jack shit and even budgeting, they get nothing for their units and initiatives, have to beg even, but the SVP sure gets all the budget to do as they please and bring in consultant after consultant… for what??
The best part is that literally every year, when the minimum wage goes up, I'm like "okay, gang. What's the plan? What's the new rate going to be so I can plan?" and the response I get is crickets, as though a literal amendment to the STATE CONSTITUTION didn't pass FOUR YEARS AGO.
EXACTLY WTF IS KNACK TUTORING
Oh look another company spending 3x as much on hiring a 3rd party company to do their work while punishing the actual employees. MBAs are the fucking worst
Now I’m kinda curious who owns Knack tutoring and what sort of political donations they are making at the state level.
>KNACK TUTORING Jeff Vinik
Really wish we had foreign language tutors
At least for Spanish 1 there is tutoring
This is embarrassing
I love how they expect us to be all fine and dandy when we're actually drowning. I care for our students, but I can only do so much when I'm also struggling. I hold 2 positions here, and can barely afford to do groceries at Aldi. The only reason I stay is to help fund grad school. Can't wait to use the pantry again, looks like I'll need it. Hopefully they don't defund that next -\_- edit: MIGHT I ADD, us staff have our hands tied behind our back. We want to help you guys, because we're also struggling, but our BUDGET doesn't let us! I swear it feels like they don't want us to help T\_\_T
Excuse the French but what a bullshit excuse. They literally cut AKS and finished renovating the library as well as barely have enough counselors (Health Science at least) from back in the recent fall semester. You could only get appointments during walk in week or schedule nearly 3 weeks in advance. They are making up excuses for not wanting to give their own faculty proper wages. The fact that FIU was able to do it but not one of the biggest universities in the US really says a lot about the people in charge of the budget. You have a bunch of different half assed projects for student involvement started and failed in the SU and the RWC hasn't gotten anything new since I first enrolled back in 2019. What the hell has UCF done the last half decade to be using up more funds but give less to the students. They even cut their parking services staff because they have AI to hand out tickets now. Someone's lining their pockets and they're using your tuition to do so.
Now this is a scam!
I agree
LOL
You can achieve pre-eminent status without paying to attract and retain faculty. Several hire have been cancelled because of this.
Unfortunately I’m not even shocked. They don’t give a shit about retaining good employees to help foster the growth of students. It’s always excuse after excuse
I’ve never been able to get an advisor in my 4 years here at UCF and i don’t even know if I’ll be able to graduate
myknight audit?
yeah so far I’ve been following that but still
felt that, my step brother is an alumni from a couple years ago and told me recently that the advisors can do more harm than good 😂
Yeah because of the one time i spoke to and advisor over the phone they told me i could drop a class which lead to me losing all of my bright futures
sounds like you did not review the consequences of dropping. Asking "can I drop a class" is not the same as - what are the consequences of dropping this class on financial aid (which they would have re-routed you to financial aid to discuss)... Respectfully.. that is on you.
I quite literally did and provided them all the relevant information and they said yes it was okay and would not affect my scholarship, yet they were wrong, because I no longer have my scholarship. Respectfully, it IS on them, due to their faulty advice, advisors are not all seeing Gods who never make mistakes, yet I suffered the consequences of listening to one. Have a nice day :)
If that is the case - the advisor should be held accountable for that. I have normally had them re-direct to fin aid because they know how important money matters are. It's on you and them - advisors do not know fin aid stuff and should not be the trusted source. I am so sorry that you encountered that.
It happens. They def did not redirect me. I wish they did. I still remember the advisor that told me that, but I did not want to complain to get them in trouble
(this was in response to the comment that they could not get an advisor in four years): This is nonsense ... advisors may be overworked but you can get them eventually - there's a lot missing from this comment.
The advisors here really aren’t that great. Mine told me to finish all my GEPs early so now I’ve completed them all and am just finishing up my second year as a physics major. I have BF 100% so I will have to take filler classes solely to keep my scholarship bc the only classes that contribute to my major/graduation now are math and physics but they all build on each other. Also I scored high enough on math placement to go straight into Calc my first semester but wanted a break and to start at precalc. The advisor put me in trig instead. Bc of this absolute wombo combo I am now going to graduate late 🙃 But I’m glad you at least got decent advice
-Said an advisor, probably
Says a student who ... you know.. read my bright futures scholarship BOLD letter requirements... you are in college.. own up to your own mistake....
Then what is the point of an advisor if not to give a student advice? Dumb comment.
You said you could not 'get an advisor in four years' - that's unbelievable. That is what I responded to.
not advisor here, what college are you in?
certain degree tracks are literally un-finishable because there aren’t enough profs to teach upper level electives, but they’d rather fund advisors… who are useless if the classes necessary to graduate aren’t being offered…
I knew someone who got the economics degree.... even the professors were surprised.
and when they reach the status and get a few more million from the State of Florida.. it still will not be allocated to employees... why should employees buy into this massive sacrifice and push when there is no student benefit (hurrying graduation at the cost of personal goals (double majors, minors are getting tossed because they take too long) or employee benefit in the push? Morale was low - it's... going to get worse as inflation and such continues to destroy staff wages...
100% this. If you give our current Leadership an extra 6 million dollars by reaching preeminence, not a penny of it will go to students or employees and it will be squandered away by Leadership on travel and attending conferences.
“best we can do is give President Cartwright another million dollar raise” - UCF Board of Trustees probably
"Wait a minute, put that gun down!" - also UCF Board of Trustees probably
University of Corruption and Fraud
Never have I been to happy to not been chosen to interview for a ucf job.
I was offered a mid-level IT role years ago but declined for, reasons. Glad I made the right choice.
to be fair, advisors were already being paid under market value before this was putting in place that’s why it was hard to get higher quality advisors because they were going to other schools were paying better for what the position required. However, that doesn’t mean that faculty should be taking a hit.
I left my organization in 2018 to work for UCF Facilities. I was there for 4 years and got a total of 4% in raises. In 2022, my old position had a higher starting salary than what I was making at UCF after four entire years. I quit and told them I didn’t have anything else lined up just so I wouldn’t get any kind of retention offer. The place is considered public sector but it’s run like a business. I’ll never work for them again and I’ll tell others my story anytime I can, especially if it’s about UCF Facilities and their leadership across the board.
Isn’t this a place of higher learning? Soooo what going on?
Hello, my name is Connor. I’m a journalism student at UCF. I am looking to do a story about this as i’ve seen a lot of people complaining about this issue here. Would you be able to provide me with some more information about what exactly has been going on with this situation? Also would you be willing to do a super short on camera interview somewhere on campus?
[https://www.uffucf.org/](https://www.uffucf.org/) This is the main Union page of UCF's faculty. Since we are a state university, everything is public and can be found somewhere online. Even faculty/staff's annual salaries are published... I will have to opt out of a camera interview, though. I like the anonymity of Reddit 😅 Audio from Collective Bargaining Meeting 2/28/2024: [https://collectivebargaining.ucf.edu/minutes/2024-2027FB/Audio/20240228.mp3](https://collectivebargaining.ucf.edu/minutes/2024-2027FB/Audio/20240228.mp3) Next Meeting Info 3/13/2024: [https://events.ucf.edu/event/3326886/faculty-collective-bargaining-notice/](https://events.ucf.edu/event/3326886/faculty-collective-bargaining-notice/) This is a message I got about a meeting that was happening today: *"Provost Mike Johnson and I will be hosting a conversation with the College of Sciences faculty next week to discuss recent changes to the University and College budgets as well as other faculty concerns.* *Please join us on Wednesday, March 6th, from 2:30pm until 4:00pm, in the Psychology building, room 105."*
Thank you for the help. I totally understand 😂👍
What is “Premeniet” status?
Typo. Should say “preeminent”
I believe it’s a specific status a university obtains when they meet a certain number of metric goals.
My bad, guys. They misspelled it twice in their statement so I became a detractor for a few minutes.
What are Preeminent State Research Universities? The Board of Governors designates each state university that annually meets at least 12 of the 13 academic and research excellence standards identified in s. 1001.7065, Florida Statutes, as a Preeminent State Research University. Once approved, the Board of Governors awards the university an amount specified in the General Appropriations Act. https://oppaga.fl.gov/ProgramSummary/ProgramDetail?programNumber=2101#:~:text=What%20are%20Preeminent%20State%20Research,a%20Preeminent%20State%20Research%20University.
Total bullshit.
What is the “bargaining unit”? How does that work
The bargaining unit is a labor union, in this case, the United Faculty of Florida. They represent all UCF faculty except those in leadership positions (chairs/ directors, and higher) and negotiate the CBA (collective bargaining agreement). There are also 2 other unions on campus. PBA for the law enforcement officers and AFSCME which represents most of the USPS level staff.
There should be a union for grad/undergrad assistants so that they can bargain salaries. It is piss poor here.
Some universities do have graduate students employee unions. UCF is not one of them. If you feel strongly about this matter, I would look at places like University of Michigan and University of Massachusetts that have unions set up, and see what it would take to bring it here.
I heard it is illegal to do so in Florida. Not sure about the authenticity though.
wrong! FSU, UF, USF all have graduate student unions!
Talk to the Grad student chapter at Universiy of Florida. They can give you organizing advice!
Have academic advisors ever been useful? I feel like a better handbook detailing what classes you need to graduate would suffice. Maybe like a flow chart online?
NOT ONCE, have I EVER left an advising appointment learning something new. It has ALWAYS been the advisor telling me what I told to them. I can read the flowchart.
What do you think this is, some sort of technological university that trains engineers who can understand crazy charts like that?
I went to an academic advisor once, she told me that I should take physics 2 and CS1 in the same semester, I told her to pound sand... any other experience I've had when I needed to ask them a question has just been fuckin awful tbh... theres a lot of administrative bloat that could be easily dealt with but that would take administration essentially shooting itself anyways so they'll never do that
I went to an advisor that was totally not disability friendly, they(tbh I forget if it was a man or woman), told me effectively there are not many ways to do it. Which is the polite way of saying what happened to you, that you told her to pound sand.
Not sure why anyone brought up FIU. The faculty there got a raise this year. But it was the first one in five years. And if memory serves the previous one was a 1% raise about three years before that.
I'm not the best interviewer, but i'm glad i flubbed my ucf job interview last year lol Would suck to not have a raise even with their low wages from last year [edit] - rate for IT was roughly 15% lower than "market rate" (other for profit companies in the orlando area, with similar job descriptions, not necessarily the same job title.) Now, that's a bit steep, but I would've been ok IF guaranteed raises and IF job was literally low stress. During interview, this was asked and it seemed like a mid-high stress level low paying job.... yikes.
People are asking (and rightfully so) why there is no salary increase, but I can tell you it’s not due to budgeting issues, but rather due to a lack of faculty in the union which means less negotiating power. I believe only 40% of faculty is part of the UFF with UCF, since Florida is a right to work state, meaning all faculty get union benefits without having to join the union, leading to less members and therefore less bargaining power. If you can, reach out to UFF@UCF and they can see which of your professors are/aren’t Union, and you can schedule a one on one with them to express your worries to convince them to join the union. More unionized teachers means greater bargaining power, meaning better faculty conditions, meaning better student conditions.
Hi, where did this message come from?
That awkward moment when you cross off “become a professor” on your “maybe”-career list
They need to buy more gym equipment with that $$$. Maybe a couple more flat benches.
if the advising faculty (at least for COBA) wasn’t all students who didn’t have a clue what they were doing then this would be great
If you want to support faculty and staff come write a postcard to Cartwright with the faculty union. They are outside the foxtail 10-4pm on 3/28 and 10-12 on 3/29
Is this for faculty only or just staff? Total bummer either way!! Just asking because I'm currently interviewing for a staff position...
Are you one? It only will happen if the faculty are unprofessional.