University of Florida Retired Faculty oppose targeting of universities
Letter to the editor
The officers and board members of the Retired Faculty of the University of Florida (RFUF) on April 5, 2025, strongly endorsed a statement on the challenges facing higher education.
The UF retired faculty are greatly troubled by “emerging attacks on the value and fiscal stability of institutions of higher education, both in place and proposed, by state and federal agencies. These efforts appear to target reducing institutional autonomy, evidence-based thinking, academic freedom, diversity, and the scientific and cultural contributions of universities and colleges that are the centerpieces of a free country.”
Faculty emeritus from UF’s colleges of medicine, pharmacy, engineering, arts and sciences, and agriculture support the view that “the advancement and support of higher education is and must remain among the highest of national priorities.”
Maintaining support for our universities and colleges is critical for our nation because “lifesaving advances in medical sciences do not typically originate in private industry but instead from university research laboratories powered by state and federal investment. Life-changing advances in computing, engineering, agriculture, weather forecasting, communications, and other facets of modern life similarly are often products of university-generated research.”
Americans are concerned about the state of our economy and about our relations with other countries. The retired UF faculty believe that “funding of our institutions of higher education is absolutely essential to maintain competitiveness in our economy and in world leadership.”
During this consequential time in our nation’s history, it is critical that adequate funding be maintained so that we can continue to have “universities empower individuals to achieve their full potential while also ensuring progress and the well-being of our country.”
It is also recognized that “our community colleges have offered both excellent academic and job training skills for our citizens” and their funding must likewise be maintained.
The UF retired faculty ask “all Americans to demand, as we do, that responsible leaders take us forward with thoughtful and unwaveringly strong support of institutions of higher education, not backward.”
This statement, which can be read here, was sent to UF President Kent Fuchs, UF Provost Joseph Glover, and UF Faculty Senate Chair Sarah D. Lynne. A copy of the complete statement and signatories is attached as a Word document.
The Retired Faculty of the University of Florida (RFUF) is a half-century-old organization deeply invested in the future of our institution. RFUF has more than 250 retirees representing every college of the University of Florida. Click here for RFUF’s website.
Retired Faculty of the University of Florida, Gainesville
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Some of them are part of the problem.
Problem being the students who want free college educations and their debts forgiven.
Maybe the faculty should have taught them about contracts and loan requirements.
In case anyone is wondering, one of the reasons college tuition cost so much is salaries of professors that gets passed on to students who then complain about the costs of college. The students are obviously protesting the wrong organizations.
Huh? The article isn’t about student tuition or protesting students. UF and state colleges are affordable institutions.
Professors like most of us want to paid for our work Rip off institutions, like Trump University and many others, where debts are accrued for a meaningless degree are the problem.
“The UF retired faculty are greatly troubled by “emerging attacks on the value and fiscal stability of institutions of higher education, both in place and proposed, by state and federal agencies. These efforts appear to target reducing institutional autonomy, evidence-based thinking, academic freedom, diversity, and the scientific and cultural contributions of universities and colleges that are the centerpieces of a free country.”
You can’t have REAL evidence- based thinking and the rest of your laundry list of woke wishes. Sorry.
UF and other state universities are among he very cheapest quality universities in the US, so no, that is not “the problem”.
As noted in the RFUF letter, our state and country benefit from highly educated citizens and this is statistically verifiable as well as the reason a university education is free if you qualify in many European countries while your too cheap and dumb to spend money on seed corn.
The problem is too many universities are hooked on government handouts. UF rakes in a lot from tuition, athletic programs, endowments, and their Gatorade royalties. They don’t pay taxes and the city provide a lot of free services at the local taxpayers expense.
Why do they need government subsidies?
We’ve entered into a new age of politics, so RFUF need to concentrate on revenue management as a solution to their problems.
Dude, UF is a state school. Always was and will always be one and that is how it has an instate tuition of $6,400 while the private Univ of Miami costs $62,600 and is ranked lower academically.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
Agree wholeheartedly.
It’s strange if they only sent it to Fuchs, Glover and Lynne, who are hardly the ones “threatening” the institutions that RFUF is so worried about. I would have thought that they could have used the internet to find addresses in Tallahassee or DC to send their compelling endorsement of funding higher ed.
That is a respectful chain of command act toward those in charge of UF, not the state government or US president who are not. Unfortunately Fuchs has always been a eunuch – see Spencer incident – and UF has bowed to all political interference from the cretins in Tallahassee and DC.
What is the beginning salary of someone who graduates with a degree in:
Minor in Actuary Science
French and Francophone Studies Minor
Theories and Politics of Sexuality Minor
Linguistics Major
The RFUF must be running their membership sign up.
There is a difference between exercising free speech to take a stand, and rioting to obtain a desired outcome. One is lawful, the other is unlawful but supported by the DNC.
Our cultural problem is our focus on income and wealth at the expense of other important values as highlighted by your comments. Sure topics of interest vary widely that are hard to grasp… so be it. Noam Chomsky is a linguist BTW. There are plenty of protests without rioting or violence to imply they are the same is wrong.
“Other important values”, oh, OK, you probably have a degree in Minor in Actuary Science. Living off Mom and Dad still? Otherwise, yes, income is critical to paying the bills!
I did not imply protests and rioting were the same, better read my post again, unless you consider the George Floyd Riots as “protests?”
Also, Noam Chomsky is a Socialist, i.e.: Free Sh!@ for everyone! Including college tuition, he and Bernie Sanders probably graduated HS together.
“The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) analyzed more than 7,750 Black Lives Matter demonstrations in all 50 states and Washington D.C. that took place in the wake of George Floyd’s death between May 26 and August 22.
Their report states that more than 2,400 locations reported peaceful protests, while fewer than 220 reported “violent demonstrations.” The authors define violent demonstrations as including “acts targeting other individuals, property, businesses, other rioting groups or armed actors.” Their definition includes anything from “fighting back against police” to vandalism, property destruction looting, road-blocking using barricades, burning tires or other materials. In cities where protests did turn violent—these demonstrations are “largely confined to specific blocks,” the report says.
The ACLED report includes protests toppling statues of “colonial figures, slave owners and Confederate leaders” as violent incidents…”
https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/
Wow! Had to dig deep to find this “fully remote” organization! They don’t list their contributors and their partners in the US are definitely not “impartial.”
So you and ACLED consider a 10% violent demonstration rate what? Success?
Google how many of the BLM leaders have been outed as using supporter contributions for their personal luxuries.
Dude, you called the George Floyd protests “riots”, when they happened all over the country – including here – largely without violence. Yes, the BLM leadership – like our governor – is linked to the use of funds improperly, but that’s not the subject raised by “Guest” or you.
I guess Google is “dig(ging) deep” for you but pages of info on the organization spring up from that search including
“Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) is a non-profit organization specializing in disaggregated conflict data collection, analysis, and crisis mapping. ACLED codes the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and demonstration events around the world in real time. As of 2022, ACLED has recorded more than 1.3 million individual events globally.[1] In addition to data collection, the ACLED team conducts analysis to describe, explore, and test conflict scenarios, with analysis made freely available to the public for non-commercial use…..The data are used by a wide range of major international, national, and local outlets all around the world, including NPR,[45] Reuters,[46] CBC Radio Canada,[47] Bloomberg News,[48] Agence France Presse,[49] The New York Times,[50] The Guardian,[51] The Washington Post,[52] CNN,[53] The Telegraph,[54] The Independent,[55] Buzzfeed News,[56] Al Jazeera,[57] Middle East Eye,[58] the Associated Press,[59] Le Monde,[60] the BBC,[61] National Geographic,[62] The Economist,[63] The Atlantic,[64] Africa Check, OZY, VICE News,[65] the Daily Beast,[66] Sky News,[67] the Financial Times,[68] Middle East Eye,[69] Channel 4, Voice of America,[70] USA Today, Rolling Stone, ProPublica,[71] PBS Frontline, La Croix, Televisa Mexico, El Universal,[72] Iran International,[73] and El Pais, among others. In 2019, The Mail & Guardian listed ACLED as “the most comprehensive database of conflict incidents around the world[74].”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Conflict_Location_and_Event_Data
Deflect much?
Comparing BLM frauds to a duly elected Governor is such horse crap!
But Dems are experts. Good news is that most Americans saw through the Democratic smokescreen and started a change last November. If the Dems had provided a suitable option, it might have been different, but they couldn’t get their hand up any other potential candidate’s A$$ in time before FJB blew them up with his ever so eloquent VP.
Violent demonstrations are just that, violent and destructive, in other words “riots”. 220 in a year is enough for 4 of your “violent demonstrations” in each state, but the Democratic leadership which encouraged the rioting, is responsible for all of it, along with BLM and Papa George Soros!
A whole lot of them and the majority have gotten away with it and likely a lot wasn’t even caught.
220 is far too many. Especially for someone who highly contributed to his own death.
Left…. Left….. Left…. Left
That’s all I hear
Universities need to stop producing useless degrees that do not help the student.
Universities are called such because of their encompassing curriculum which maintains specialists in all facets of human knowledge, including scientific and cultural achievements.
As to those who study what appear useless to you – what’s your education in genius? – many employers don’t care what your degree is in as long as you have one – it indicates intelligence and discipline – while others prefer general subjects which can broaden reasoning skills and the ability to organize an idea and compose an argument – law schools and law firms like English majors, but not because Chaucer’s relevant to contract law. Similarly, basic science and the study of obscure subjects within lead to unanticipated discoveries of specific aid to us, if sometimes only a deeper understanding of our world.
Speaking of which, it’s a great big beautiful world out there and thankfully we humans have learned a lot about it and continue to do so. Limiting our scope to known utilitarian subjects is small thinking by bean counters and citizens who don’t understand the importance of knowledge or the future.
The major problem that is ignored here, is the perceived notion of “academic freedom”. What that has become is pure indoctrination, not a search for knowledge. Diversity has become racial quotas (patently unConstitutional) and overall an agenda of retreat from reality. Instead of openness, college is no longer an open exchange of ideas; rather it is one sided, with no tolerance for opposing thought.
This may come as a surprise to some, judging from the comments I’ve read on this thread but Universities are not all about jobs.
Universities are supposed to educate and enrich the whole person, not just prepare them for a job.
+1 steely dan
Not prepare them for a JOB? What does prepare them for a JOB? Oh, right, Democrat sponsored debt forgiveness and unemployment forever!
STFU *cowards*! Note the “safety in numbers” strategy is how liberals operate (the very same people who brought us cancel culture) — not one name signed to their letter, just the supposed collection of people so no named individuals need take responsibility for those opinion. How did Universities do in ending autism? Obesity? Improving american health? Is our food more nutritious? Half of the food sold in America poison or banned in other countries. Let’s let “experts” like these losers have more say! Wait! More DEI! More diversity! That will solve it! I end as I began, STFU!! Defund them all. Especially Harvard. It is hard to resent and despise you lot any more. But I’m not bitter…
Seek help Guest
When student loan debts total $1 trillion+ and many are in default, the majority of citizens (who aren’t college grads) deserve to know WTF our colleges and universities are indoctrinating 🤡👺💩👹👿ACLUSPLCDNC
Agree!
Universities are popping out “adults” who expect the taxpayer to bail them out, not just their parents anymore!
I don’t owe them SH!T, you wanted a degree in studying why day turns to night for 4 years? Go see Mom and Dad to pay for it, or better yet, get a job and pay for it yourself!
If the RFUF pats themselves on the back any harder, they risk falling down. Actions have consequences and the indoctrination/education departments across America need to pay the bill for years of insanity.
Their whining closes, “It is time for all Americans to demand, as we do, that responsible leaders take us forward with thoughtful and unwaveringly strong support of institutions of higher education, not backward.” Why do deserve ‘unwavering’ support? Because you’ve successfully neutered the curiosity and vigor of most students? Because you’re the epitome of group conformity? Because you’ve kowtowed to diversity quotas? Our money can, and should, be spent more wisely.
“institutions of higher education” deserve unwavering support because, unlike your fantasy stereotype, they are so good that the US – until Trump and DeSantis (he is minimizing foreign enrollment) – is the prime destination in the world for those seeking a higher education, training, and a degree, and because university research – much of it funded by the feds until Trump – leads the world in technological and medical progress and advancement. That’s the stuff that saves your life and fuels the communications and energy revolutions transforming our world. Numbnuts like our prez either don’t understand that or is a Russian agent crippling us so China can take over our spot.
They made students wear face diapers & get clot shot for the big lie. Case closed. We won’t forget!
Ha, ha, ha, ha!
The drivel keeps coming, same drivel, different day! This is the same crap FJB and Kumalla spread for the past 4 years!
Gravy train is ending and AC will have to rape the taxpayers even more to keep up with their spending binge on horse shi! pet projects!
All this from a former BOCC! Gotta keep the dream alive in the Florida Liberal Haven!
I enumerated above the key reasons why it is stupid to not invest in and nurture our universities, but implied in that but ignored by ignoramuses like our president is it very good for US business as well and his cutting of it will be very bad for US business. That appears to be a key goal of his for some reason.
All your whining is very unbecoming of a 75 year old man. The children are our future and I’m younger than you, so pipe down.
I’m older than 75 and have grandchildren I care about.
My god, that explains why you are such a miserable lib boomer. You’ve had your eyes tightly closed with your foot on the pedal driving America right over a cliff, telling yourself ‘nothings wrong! everything is great! this is not my fault! I am a good person!’
And now your grandchildren are left to pick up the pieces. Will Jazzman be rolling over in his grave when his precious grandkids finally don their MAGA hats without the hectoring from the senile old man or will they be just as dumb and blind? Time will tell!
From reading these comments. I don’t think this letter to the Editor is going the way the writer wanted.
In response to some of the comments about professors being overpaid and this is why government funding must be cut:
Florida’s teachers are the most underpaid of any state in America. At Santa Fe College the vast majority of professors are temporary workers. Many have to work other jobs just to get by. To qualify as an adjunct professor you must have an advanced college degree and get no benefits such as health insurance. Thirty years ago almost all of Santa Fe’s professors were full-time employees. What changed? The State of Florida has consistently cut funding to colleges.
At UF many professors have to seek outside funding for their salaries. For example, engineering professors must find outside projects to work on as part of their position. Pharmacy professors get funding from pharmaceutical companies to conduct their work on getting life-saving medicines. If you go to UF Health for treatment some of the salary money comes not from the state but from you or your insurance company payments.
If someone you know died of cancer, heart disease, suicide, etc. are you really pleased to see cuts in the budget for research for the prevention of these problems? Most students who get an education in other fields often go on to becoming productive , tax-paying citizens.
No one objects to seeing our basketball or football coaches being paid more than $6 million annually for their work but for some reason there are loud objections to funding research that may save lives.