Governor Rick Scott and Florida’s System of Higher Education

Those of us who live in Florida have been inundated with almost daily accounts of Governor Rick Scott’s attacks on the State’s education with recent emphasis on the system of higher education.  There should be no doubt in any one’s mind that he is aping the behavior of his fellow governor with whom he shares the same first name nickname, Rick Perry of Texas.

One of Governor Scott’s latest tactics was to post online the salaries of more than 50,000 employees at the public universities as if he was disclosing a great state secret for the public to share.  However, as any knowledgeable person knows, such information has been available for years.

Rick Scott is a governor who keeps talking about accountability and making the educational system more efficient.  Thinking citizens are now required to  ask:  What about making the Governor’s office more efficient?  Are not the above actions of the Governor duplicating what is readily available and, therefore, a waste of valuable time, effort and resources?  I doubt if anyone, intellectually, would be opposed to enhancing efficiency.  However, it seems as if Governor Scott came to a very selective, preconceived conclusion as to where efficiency should be applied.

As part of his tactics, the governor wants reports detailing the teaching responsibilities of the faculty.  The governor seems to be unaware that faculty have multiple responsibilities of which teaching is the most important.  For example, faculty are expected to do academic counseling.  Depending on the college or university, a faculty member may be assigned a given number of students to counsel.  This means helping students put together a plan of study for the four years, planning their next semesters work and for following their progress.  Some faculty take this aspect of their jobs lightly, others very responsibly.  There is no way of quantifying what I consider to be a very important academic activity for a governor’s report.  Every year I had at least 10 students assigned to me who, unless they changed their major, changed institutions,or dropped out of school, I carefully followed for their entire college career: in addition, I also advised a variable number of other students who came to me for counseling and help, irrespective of their major discipline, because they were dissatisfied with their advisers; these were students who were in one or more of my courses.  Yes, I could have turned them away, but I didn’t.  I always remembered two things from my own experiences, i.e., the great stupidity and  frustrations I encountered during my college career and the very rare kindness.  I promised myself that, if ever I was in such a position, I would never mistreat a student.  Academic advising, if done properly, is exceedingly time consuming.

Again, depending on the College and University, faculty also are expected to be actively engaged in on-going scholarly activity in the faculty member’s area of expertise which, theoretically, should result in obtaining extramural financial support and publications in professional journals.  (As an aside: “scholarly activity” is a more generic, and, therefore, also a more inclusive term than what is commonly called research: it is a term that is more reflective of the variety of academic activities of faculty, i.e., preparing for and giving concerts or art exhibits is far different than doing bench research in a biology, chemistry or physics lab.)  Such activity can only be quantified partially while doing so is fraught with complexities that boggle the mind.  In some cases such activity may also include supervising graduate students on the masters and doctoral levels of education.  The latter, if done properly, is also exceedingly time consuming, especially if this activity also involves undergraduate and graduate students.

Further, faculty are expected to engage in service: service is a broad term that includes service to the institution or service to the local, regional, national or international community or one’s professional society.  Administrative service, such as working on departmental, college or university-wide committees, is part of a faculty member’s expected responsibility due to the concept of shared governance.

Faculty also have to engage in administrative work which includes, inter alia, filling out reports of one’s activities required by the university and now by the Governor and annually writing statements of goals – as if these can really change.

Of course, these faculty responsibilities and activities are to be accomplished while faulty members are trying to stay current in their field of expertise as well as in the broader fields associated with their discipline.  For example: my area of expertise was the physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology of the atmospheric gases (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and the helium-xenon group of elements) – their theoretical and practical applications.  Yet, because I taught introductory biology, I had to try to keep current with many of the major developments in the broad field of biology.  I also taught courses such as the biology of aging and the biology of drugs – an introduction to pharmacology.  Therefore, I had to try to stay current with the latest developments in these areas as well.  The new knowledge obtained had to be incorporated into one’s lectures, if the faculty member was intent on bringing the very latest information to the students irrespective of whether or not it was in the latest text books, most of which could be several years out of date by the time they were published.

I wonder how many in the general public think that all of this can be done in 2080 hrs – the total number of annual work hrs based on a 40 hr work week?  Governor Scott obviously considers educators as not doing enough on their jobs and, therefore, are being overpaid.  He cut faculty salaries by about 3%.  Florida is among the lowest paying states with respect to faculty salaries.

There is no college or university administrator who works as hard as the average conscientious faculty member.  I would be pleasantly surprised if Governor Scott demanded comparable information from administrators or athletic coaches as he does from faculty?  Most administrators do not do much teaching, if any, nor do they do much academic counseling. They either all have attained or very close to attaining their Peter principle level.  They sit on committees and make decisions while commanding exceedingly high salaries.   If Governor Scott wishes to assure that financial resources are used to their maximal effect on educating students, he could start by demanding that many of the bloated, multi-levels of administrators in the colleges and universities be eliminated: they and their ego-mollifying staff, in reality, are unproductive and unnecessary.  By so doing, there would be more money available to run the university without having to reduce faculty salaries or cutting back on library resources.

A coach has to field winning teams.  However, unlike the situation with faculty, a coach is given athletic scholarships and a staff with which to recruit and train very specific athletes.  Faculty are required to work with whatever students the university accepts.  Faculty do not select the students who appear in their classes, except perhaps for their own graduate students.  Students have various abilities, talents and personalities to which the faculty member has to adapt and weld into a classroom unity in a relatively short period of time – one week – if the faculty member is to be successful during a 16 week semester.  Unlike coaches, faculty have very little leverage over students.  For 12 yrs I taught on the semester system and for 18 yrs I worked and taught on the quarter system: this means two class turnovers per academic year on the semester system compared to three turnovers on the quarter system - summers excluded.

The latest of the Governor Scott’s harassing tactics, as he continues his relentless assault on higher education (what he is doing to public K-12 education is disgraceful but cannot be dealt with here), is his requesting – nay, demanding - that the colleges and universities provide information as to how well they are measuring student learning; how well are they preparing students for the work force; and, how well they are performing in placing students in jobs.  Further, he wants the institutions to focus on the teaching of mathematics and science.  Why?  Because it is his opinion that such a scientific/technological education will produce graduates who will be more employable than graduates in other fields, especially the humanities.  He specifically pointed to the field of anthropology as a field not worthy of being supported.  Ironically, the media uncovered the fact that his daughter was graduated with a degree in anthropology.

It seems as if Governor Scott considers the aim of higher education to be nothing more than occupational training centers thereby making the institutions of higher learning nothing more than the equivalent of vocational schools.  He even wants these institutions of higher learning to expand one of their services and make it a specific function, one never before considered to be a job of an educational institution, i.e., to be responsible for finding employment for the students.  Apparently, Governor Scott wants institutions of higher education to expand their placement services to be that of a full-time employment agency.

In such a scenario I cannot help but wonder whether Governor Scott understands how students fit into considerations of what constitutes higher education and how to deliver it.  Perhaps that is why the governor asked about the teaching responsibilities of faculty.  Perhaps Governor Scott does not consider the myriad other activities of faculty to be important and he is trying to justify eliminating them.  By so doing, the faculty can then just concentrate on teaching and catering to the students wants, desires and needs.

Is Governor Scott suggesting that any area of study outside of math, science and technology should not be funded?  And, is the Governor suggesting that the colleges and universities eliminate their vital research and graduate programs?

However, there are other considerations: What would the governor do with students who do not wish to major in math, the sciences or technology?  Are they not entitled to a higher education? Is the Governor suggesting that students be forced into these areas because that is what he wants?  Are students not permitted to select the areas that are of interest to them and more in tune with their abilities and talents?  Are not students the ones who should be making career decisions and then, with or without the aid of a faculty counselor, select the appropriate course of study?  What would the governor do with and for students who want a graduate education? Send them out of state?

What will such actions mean for the quality of faculty at these institutions, the quality of education, the quality of the students that would be attracted to these institutions and the eventual economic impact on the state?

Governor Scott appears either to be a man devoid of understanding as to what are the myriad aims of education or else chooses to ignore the wider educational purposes of colleges and universities.   I cannot help but conclude that Governor Scott is cynically appealing to and trying to assuage the basest instincts of his ignorant base to the ultimate detriment of the people of the State of Florida.