State university officials take aim at slashing book prices, Palm Beach Post

January 25, 2009
By Kimberly Miller


Florida Atlantic University student Ed Fulton figures the bookstore let him off easy this semester - his largest single purchase was an $80 tome on environmental chemistry.

He still spent about $450 on books for his spring classes, and in the fall, he plunked down a titanic $150 for a volume on biology.

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Report: Reversing the Course of Academic Staffing, FACE

By Craig Smith
December 2, 2008

Today, AFT releases a new report, Reversing Course: The Troubled State of Academic Staffing and a Path Forward, which provides further data on higher education's continuing reliance on underpaid contingent faculty and the parallel decline in the number of full-time tenure-track faculty. The report looks not only at the numbers of contingent faculty now in the workforce, but also at the number of classes and students they are teaching as well as what they earn. This analysis is followed by a new interactive model to help colleges, unions and other faculty organizations, or even states begin to calculate the cost of reversing this trend.

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For the report (pdf), click here.

Florida State University hiring freeze, WCTV (Tallahassee)

October 31, 2008

The Florida State University president, T.K. Wetherell, yesterday announced he would put a hiring freeze into effect for the university.

T.K. Wetherell says that FSU is working with 25 million dollars less than they had last year. He also estimates that number could jump to 70 million dollars in the 2009 school year. With 80 percent of the university's budget in personnel alone, a decision has been made to put a freeze on hiring new employees.

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USF now on hunt for more faculty, Tampa Tribune

By Adam Emerson
October 10, 2008

TAMPA - Students in crowded classrooms at the University of South Florida may see relief next fall now that the university has advertised dozens of jobs for new faculty members.

USF took out a full-page ad this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education seeking applicants for about 75 positions. There also are another 30 unadvertised vacant jobs in the medical school, university Provost Ralph Wilcox said Friday.

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University of South Florida to tap cash reserves to pay for raises, St. Petersburg Times

By Donna Winchester
August 23, 2008

University of South Florida administrators will begin dipping into the school's cash reserves to provide raises and cost-of-living increases for faculty and staff.

USF provost Ralph Wilcox announced the decision Friday at a faculty assembly, saying the move is the best approach to managing the "unprecedented magnitude of budget cuts" handed down to the state university system from Tallahassee.

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Who will stop Florida's fleeing faculty? St Petersburg Times

June 25, 2008
Gov. Charlie Crist's plan to buy hundreds of square miles of U.S. Sugar Corp. property as part of the Everglades restoration is an audacious attempt to make an enormous impact that would last for generations. Where is that same vision by state government for higher education?

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War of fiscal attrition, The Ledger (Lakeland)

June 19, 2008

A week ago Wednesday, Gov. Charlie Crist quietly signed a new state budget that cuts spending by $6 billion from the previous year. On the very next day, he announced that he would withhold an additional 4 percent from state agencies in anticipation of budget cuts yet to come. Call it a fiscal double whammy.

Crist did the same thing last year, in preparation for reductions in state revenue collections that were projected because of the failing economy. The projections came true.

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Board's $21 million statewide cuts won't affect UF resources, Machen says, Independent Florida Alligator

By Kristin Huff and Katie Saunders
June 17, 2008

Gov. Charlie Crist reduced funding for statewide agencies by another 4 percent Thursday, but UF President Bernie Machen assured the Board of Trustees on Friday that the cut would not drain any more of UF’s resources.

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FSU will help workers face high cost of living, St. Petersburg Times

By Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler
June 16, 2008TALLAHASSEE — The leaders of Florida State University are so worried about the faltering economy's impact on employees that they're pushing forward with plans to help their lowest-earning workers pay for food and gas.

Meanwhile, the ambitious research institution is still investing in superstar professors and at-risk students.

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Faculty Senate Requests More Input in Administrative Decisions, Independent Florida Alligator

By Katie Sanders, Alligator Staff Writer
May 20, 2008

Members of UF’s Faculty Senate called for greater input over decisions about faculty layoffs and department shake-ups during the Senate’s Thursday meeting.

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