An air of discontent lingered in Dauer Hall on Wednesday as about 100 UF faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences took a stand for what they wanted.
An air of discontent lingered in Dauer Hall on Wednesday as about 100 UF faculty members from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences took a stand for what they wanted.
Faculty members came together as the College Faculty Assembly and took a standing vote in favor of reinstating three tenure-track CLAS faculty members and three tenure-track CLAS language lecturers - all of whom are to be laid off in June due to budget cuts.
As faculty members expressed disheartenment, all eyes turned to Andrea Pham, assistant professor of Vietnamese and linguistics. Pham said she was a year away from tenure but was one of seven laid-off faculty in the college.
Pham said she was told she was laid off for financial reasons, but after an investigation into the matter, she heard differently. She said six of the seven faculty laid off were women, and all seven were foreign-born.
"When I don't know why I'm laid off and given that fact, I just have to draw the conclusion that I'm laid off because I'm foreign-born and I'm a woman," she said.
To meet the college's 6 percent share of UF's $47 million budget crunch in summer, Joe Glover, UF provost and former interim CLAS dean, made the decision to lay off the faculty members. Originally, 16 CLAS faculty were pegged to lose their jobs.
Although the faculty assembly does not have the power to reinstate laid-off members, Glover said in an interview he and new Dean Paul D'Anieri would take the assembly's proposals into consideration.
He said reinstatements would be hypothetically possible if funds to cover the reinstated faculty members' salaries were found. Neither Glover nor D'Anieri attended the meeting.
D'Anieri wrote in an e-mail that he will continue to work with faculty and department chairs on this unprecedented budget crunch. He said he will focus on developing principles to guide decisions if further cuts are necessary.
John Leavey, UF English professor and chairman of the CLAS Faculty Council, addressed the lack of funds in the meeting, saying a committee investigated the causes of CLAS finances in April and found them to be problematic. Leavey said the committee found funds in UF's reserves that would allow the college to keep its laid-off faculty members.
UF spokeswoman Janine Sikes said the university is doing its best to avoid layoffs.
"But the bottom line is we cannot dwell on what has already happened, and that's not to minimize the loss of faculty," she said. "That's a terrible human toll."
Sikes said future layoffs are imminent given the constraints of the state's budget.
Also concerned about faculty layoffs were about 40 members of the Asian American Student Union who rallied outside of Dauer Hall in favor of reinstating the faculty members. Some carried posters that said "Save Languages."
"The student population here at UF is really diverse. They're all different heritages and cultures," said Alyssa Wang, the organization's campus affairs chairwoman. "And these languages were really a good way for these students to learn about their family."
