The battle for new college

First of all you can’t waive Greek life away. They control the student government purse strings and that’s a cool 30 mil a year. Second is grad student council. The grad student union raises their money through dues.

 

Note the total dei spend at Uf was basically nothing. .14 percent of budget.

UF reported spending $5 million, less than 1% of budget, on diversity initiatives - The Independent Florida Alligator

 

for the entire student body I showed you the primary platforms. Dei barely cracks the radar except for change party. Which hasn’t been able to win barely anything in student senate. Dei isn’t unimportant but it doesn’t dominate campus.

 

this is laughable. The total budget for the year which you can see on that website is over 22 million. Some of those clubs have marginal participation. And you are claiming that this pittance is somehow symbolic of some huge influential dei movement? Having worked on campus both for and IN student orgs I can tell you unequivocally they are not influential on the vast majority of the student body. Most of that money is then used for parties and tailgates lol.

 

I don’t want to downplay how important these clubs are at times for connecting people of color on campus, they are super important for that. But not very influential. And there is plenty of research that indicates people of color do NOT feel inherently welcomed at primarily white institutions.

 

fine ignore stats if you want. Your argument still doesn’t hold water when you consider what the clubs spend money on. It's not like they are investing into activism, or advertising, or much of anything besides just hanging out and having fun. I’ve been a student myself several times since the late 90s, (3 times), served as an advisor for student organizations, and have taught or advised literally thousands of students at UF over the last 20 years. And I can tell you, that your interpretation of these "dei student orgs" is out of touch with reality. They can be influential and very important for the people that participate, especially people of color. But they are not particularly influential on campus and do not control any levers of power.

When I worked with the grad student leadership - we tried numerous times to involve "dei based organizations" in student activism - especially around issues of housing, and grad student pay. They barely got involved! They were too busy fighting with UF over accessible parking!!!! Lol. So when you talk about how influential they are, and how they plant seeds and influence other students, all I can do is LAUGH! I still remember some of them complaining at public comment to the BOT about teaching on campus during covid and how persons of color were more likely to be negatively effected. No one cared. There was no uproar on campus. Because the very next person to complain to the BOT was a faculty member and that got a lot more attention.

Maybe you saw something as a student that really pissed you off, I don't know. But I can tell you you have a fundamental misconception about how campus works, and what the levers of influence are on MOST students.

 

I want to add that none of this DEI discussion in any way justifies what DeSantis is doing state-wide. Especially as it relates to attempting to influence what is taught, how it is taught, and trying to control who teaches it. The attacks on tenure and shared-governance hiring practices WILL HURT the educational mission of Florida's universities. And it won't resolve ANY of what you are talking about. In fact, it will probably make it worse, as people tend to resist when they are attacked like this.

I would expect there to be a lot of malicious compliance across the SUS

 

DeSantis puts into action his plan to end "woke activism" (insidehighered.com)

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression called DeSantis out, noting in a news release that while it “supports prohibiting the use of all political litmus tests in admissions, hiring, and promotions,” DeSantis is in danger of trading “one orthodoxy for another” in an effort to eliminate so-called loyalty oaths.

FIRE also weighed in on plans to expand the power of presidents over faculty tenure.

“Giving university presidents expansive power over hiring, firing, and post-tenure review jeopardizes academic freedom,” FIRE’s statement read. “The more power that one individual has to call the shots on campus, the easier it is for political forces—be they donors, politicians, students, or activists—to dictate the range of acceptable ideas and voices. Administrators with more authority will be pressured to use that authority in ways that today’s political climate cannot forecast.”

Other items on the agenda—such as eliminating the college’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence—were pushed off for consideration until the next board meeting. Board chair Mary Ruiz—a holdover trustee who stepped down from the chair position during the meeting—cautioned trustees against getting ahead of the governor and State University System of Florida, given the changes promised by DeSantis, while other trustees argued it was time to lead on rejecting DEI.

While the removal of the president prompted student outrage and chants of “shame” from the audience, it fell well short of the stated intentions of one newly appointed DeSantis trustee.

Eddie Speir, who runs an independent K-12 school in Florida, wrote in a newsletter this week that his plan to fundamentally reshape NCF includes asking legal counsel to weigh in on whether trustees could declare “a financial emergency” that would allow them to terminate the contracts for all faculty, staff and administrators and immediately rehire only those “who fit in the new financial and business model.”

Speir’s plans for a massive restructuring, however, did not make it onto the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.

The NCF next board meeting is scheduled for Feb. 28.

-- These people are nuts.
Here is more

DeSantis’s Higher-Ed Push Just Got Bigger. Fresh Resistance Is Starting to Bubble Up.

On Monday, the United Faculty of Florida told Florida Atlantic University’s interim provost that, in an attempt to comply with Renner’s directive, the university has asked some faculty members to turn over materials that go beyond the House speaker’s scope. FAU has also caused “confusion and panic” by telling professors that, “All records related to university business are public records, even if they are transmitted through personal devices, personal emails, or personal social-media accounts,” Cami Acceus, a UFF staff member, wrote to Michele Hawkins, the interim provost, in a letter obtained by The Chronicle.

The applicable standard is not whether communications are “loosely, tangentially, or even closely related to university business,” Acceus wrote. It’s if those communications actually “transact” FAU business. She cited Florida statute and the state attorney general’s “Government-in-the-Sunshine” manual.

“Understandably, FAU has an interest in protecting itself from legislative attacks and may even fear retribution if it does not respond zealously to the House,” Acceus said. “For these reasons, the university has cast its net wide to err on the side of overproducing records to the House of Representatives. Yet, it is not fair or just to faculty when FAU intrudes into their private lives, going beyond the scope of the record request at issue.”

THIS IS A WITCH HUNT PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

The fact that small government republicans are happily supporting this level of overreach would be laughable if it weren't dangerous.

Also this:

Florida Atlantic’s faculty senate also adopted a full-throated defense of DEI efforts. These programs “are not the product of a ‘woke’ ideology,” reads the statement. Rather, “DEI is a student-success strategy. Moreover, it is a strategy that responds to student demand and expectation.” The document urges Florida’s elected leaders to “realize the damage these mischaracterizations and scare tactics” have wrought, both to the reputation of state institutions and to the morale of its educators. It calls on donors, business leaders, alumni, and citizens for their support.

“Our message is clear: Education is too important to our students, to the people of Florida, and to the future of our nation to be put at risk by political whim.”