January 15, 2021
From Department of Biology
Faculty to Paul Ortiz,
President, UFF-UF
Dear Dr. Ortiz,
How little do the faculty mean to the administration of UF? We asked for accommodations for teaching in spring 2021; we were mostly denied. We raised our concerns about HyFlex teaching and appropriate pedagogy (which is in the wheelhouse of many of us); we were dismissed. Faculty are not on the priority list for vaccinations.
Now we find that the administration, without any input from the faculty, has updated the Gator Safe app so that students can report their professors for alleged violations related to Spring teaching policies. Students are explicitly invited to use it in a letter from the Vice President of Student Affairs addressed to all students and their parents. There are so many issues with this; here are a handful:
1) We as faculty have already expressed grave concerns with consistency between sections in HyFlex courses; now it appears that these concerns will be used against us.
Face to face (F2F) students are charged distance learning (DL) fees if they move to the online section of a HyFlex class. This is already inconsistent treatment between the sections and not the decision of the faculty.
2) This structure creates adversarial power balances among students, administrators, and faculty.
3) Parents of students have been informed of this reporting system. How can faculty respond to parents without violating FERPA?
4) There is no guidance to inform students what is appropriate/allowed in courses (courses must meet a minimum of 51% in person, ADA accommodations allowed for the professor after the start of the semester may affect the course, the appropriate length of time to wait for a response, for example).
F2F students have been led to believe that this semester will run as typical semesters, leading to unrealistic expectations and disappointment from F2F students when they receive the same instruction as online students, per UF mandate.
5) Students can report teacher misconduct if they have a personal issue with the professor.
There is a large amount of research that shows that women, POC, and those with disabilities already experience bias in evaluations.
Intro/service classes with a larger number of students (and thus a larger potential number of “reporters”) are disproportionately taught by non- tenured and thus more vulnerable faculty.
6) Faculty peers could ostensibly anonymously report other faculty members that they do not like.
7) It is not clear what happens after the report is received.
What is the timeline?
Where is the burden of proof? In this system, it seems to lie with the professor.
What happens after the report is verified or dismissed?
How does this affect tenure/promotion?
How much time will department chairs and instructors responding to spurious and unfair inquiries waste?
Ultimately, we fail to see how reporting your professor for holding class online falls under the concept of SAFETY. Please note that while this act of authoritarianism provides a function to report professors who do not teach the way a student wishes to be taught, there is no similar function or route to report those who perpetrate discrimination, sexual harassment, racist acts or even violations of CDC guidelines. Our trust in the President and in the Provost's office has been destroyed blow by blow; this steady abuse of faculty trust will have serious repercussions. We urge you to take action that will lead to elimination of this reporting tool, and result in consequences for those who supported its deployment.
Sincerely yours, Department of Biology faculty:
[Names Redacted]