UPDATE: We heard back from Youndy Cook. Read the update here.
UPDATE 11:07 A.M.: We got a response from UCF about a half hour ago. You can find it directly underneath the Faculty Union’s statement, below.
ORIGINAL BREAKING NEWS STORY, POSTED THURSDAY EVENING
KnightNews.com was sent a message the UCF faculty union is circulating accusing UCF administrators of lying and not following the UCF Creed.
We asked UCF for its response to this message specifically and did not immediately hear back. We did get a reply back earlier in the afternoon on an unrelated matter explaining the Public Relations office has been extremely busy this week and they’ll get back to us with more time.
HOT TOPIC: SGA President Kilbride’s Ego Ruins Homecoming?
KnightNews.com published the faculty information anyway, because based on information coming out of the PR office over the last few days, we aren’t expecting a full UCF response anytime soon, and the faculty are urging people to attend the board of trustees meeting tomorrow. (Although the UFF calendar had the meeting scheduled for Thursday, so we’ll confirm the information tomorrow.)
A spokesman stated earlier this morning UCF couldn’t respond to a credible tip we got that a UCF employee was hired after being punished for embezzling a large sum of money at that employee’s former place of employment until next week — because they were already busy working on a basic public records request which knightnews.com filed Tuesday to better understand what appears could be an abuse of FERPA privacy laws to help conceal how $15 million of state student fee money is spent.
UCF attorney Youndy Cook has not returned our email seeking comment on the FERPA issue. We have confirmed she lied to our attorney about whether we had permission to videotape Skit Knight last year, which is the hot topic issue causing so much confusion on FERPA lately. She corrected her lie within a couple of hours — but not until after we put out word in the UCF community that she once again was dishonest.
UCF public relations staff has not directly answered repeated questions on the FERPA topic. Since we started asking questions about the FERPA policy, UCF has made changes on the sly, but hasn’t explained if they broke the law before the changes were made. Knightnews.com first posed the question last week to UCF public relations staff.
Once the PR staff catches up, we will update you on all issues by including UCF’s side.
Here’s the statement from UCF faculty:
Hitt to Faculty: No Raise for You
Dear Colleague,
You will recall on September 28th the UCF administration wrote to you, “The university agrees 100 percent with the magistrate’s recommendation that faculty members receive the compensation package UCF has offered. Getting faculty members that money has been our goal from Day 1.”
Just a couple hours ago, we received President Hitt’s recommendations to the Board of Trustees regarding your raise. He writes, “The University not only rejects the magistrate’s recommendation for across-the-board raises, it recommends that the board provide no raises to the faculty for 2009-2010.”
In other words, they lied to you.* In writing. See for yourself: Hitt’s salary recommendation begins on page 3.
We wonder, has anyone in the administration ever read the UCF Creed? The first core value is “Integrity: I will practice and defend academic and personal honesty.”
As you can imagine, this is the sort of chronic duplicity that we have grown used to at the bargaining table. It is both outrageous and disheartening that President Hitt, after receiving a $143,085.01 bonus, would deny hard working faculty members a meager 1% raise.
We’re sure the University’s large public relations staff will craft another email to send to you to try to convince you this is really UFF’s fault; that the “big, bad union MADE us not give you a raise.” We wonder how they will try to explain away their flagrant dishonesty.
We encourage you to attend the Board of Trustee’s hearing tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. in the President’s Boardroom in Millican Hall.
In solidarity,
The UFF-UCF Bargaining Team
*according to Webster’s, to lie is to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.
UCF RESPONSE
KnightNews.com got this response from UCF at 10:31 this morning, sent on behalf of UCF’s Grant Heston, Assistant Vice President of News and Information:
UCF strongly believes that faculty members deserve the compensation
package awarded to all other UCF employees. That package is a $1,500
one-time payment and the opportunity to participate in a one-percent
retroactive raise pool.
UCF’s position has been clear and consistent since the start of
negotiations more than a year ago. If the union approves Administrative
Discretionary Increases, we will provide the compensation package
immediately. We’ve never waivered.
The UCF chapter of the United Faculty of Florida, by contrast, has
rejected ADIs during contract negotiations for the first time ever,
jeopardizing the university’s ability to carry out its mission. All
other public universities in Florida have ADI and it is a critical tool
used to keep and reward excellent faculty and adjust wage inequities.
We fervently hope the faculty union will accept our proposed contract
language regarding ADIs, as it has in the past. However, when the union
declared impasse in contract negotiations, it set in motion a chain of
events that will conclude on Nov. 10. If the union has not approved the
ability to grant ADIs by that date, the president will make a final
recommendation to the Board of Trustees that faculty members not receive
a one percent raise and a $1,500 one-time payment. ADIs are essential to
the aspirations of this university to be a nationally recognized
metropolitan research university.
