After having opportunities to respond to the PSCFA press releases given to the Corsair, Pensacola News Journal, and Inside Higher Ed, the administration did not do so in the press. Instead, Dr. Spicer sent the following e-mail to Paige Anderson, PSCFA president, claiming that the press has been misinformed.
It has become apparent that misinformation has been spread concerning the tentative agreement reached between the Administration and the faculty association. I am giving you the opportunity to correct this information with the faculty. If you choose not to correct the information prior to the end of the day on Tuesday, June 24, 2014, I will do so. Below are some of the most flagrant pieces of misinformation or misrepresentations that have been in print.
1) The information given to the Corsair reporter is inaccurate and shows a lack of understanding of current faculty loads and what was included in the tentative agreement. Currently, Collegiate High School faculty teach 18 hours to make their standard load, not 20 hours; the agreement reached would have changed the normal teaching load for Collegiate High School faculty to 22.5 hours, not 30 hours.
2) In the news release sent to the Pensacola News Journal, you asserted that the agreement would “reduce pay for several categories of classes, including vocational training, clinical classes for health care fields, and Collegiate High School classes. The proposed language required faculty members teaching those classes to both work more hours and earn less for doing so, as much as $6000 less per year in some cases.”
To clarify, there was no language in any proposal to reduce base pay. In fact, the agreement reached included a 2% increase to the base pay that was retroactive to August.
Furthermore, all instructional faculty members have a 35-hour standard work week. The tentative agreement to reduce point values for some courses would have included more hours of teaching within that 35-hour work week for some faculty. There was no requirement in the agreement to work more hours or to earn less for doing so.
Perhaps you are confusing the standard load within the standard work week and overload assignments. Under the language in the tentative agreement, overload assignments would have continued to be available to faculty.
3) In the news release, you wrote “Another hot topic was the college’s desire to increase the time required to receive a promotion. Initial administration proposals would have barred any faculty without a master’s degree from ever becoming a full professor as well as mandating a minimum of 17 years to reach full professor for others. To offset this increased time period, PSC agreed to increase the promotion raise to 5 percent of base pay for each step, but that bump did not convince a majority of faculty to vote for the whole package.”
To clarify, for the last several years, the faculty association bargaining team has requested that the promotion increase be changed to 5% and has referenced other CBAs, including the one at Hillsborough. The Hillsborough CBA includes much more stringent requirements for promotion than our CBA contains. The College agreed to change the promotion increase but, to agree to that change, requested a change in the promotion requirements. The promotion requirements agreed to by the College were not as stringent as those found in the Hillsborough CBA.
4) In the Insider Higher Ed article, you stated that the contract “called for the elimination of overload” for vocational, clinical health occupations and collegiate high school faculty.
That statement is just false. There was no language that would eliminate overloads.
It is not helpful to spread misinformation or to misrepresent the agreement reached at the table. I am hopeful that you will do what you can to correct items of misinformation that have been shared with faculty.
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