SBI professor speaks out about Mangum administration’s treatment of FAMU faculty

Late last week, FAMU School of Business and Industry Professor Annette Singleton Jackson wrote an open letter about what she sees as the poor treatment that the faculty is receiving under the current administration.

Jackson addressed the letter to FAMU United Faculty of Florida President Elizabeth Davenport in order to support the views that Davenport shared in the chapter’s May 2016 newsletter.  

June 3, 2016

Dear Liz,

Thank you for your efforts with the newsletter and keeping us informed. Kudos for your honesty and your dedication to obtaining fair dealings for those whom you represent. Though you are protecting the privacy of the many faculty members who have contacted you by not disclosing their personal struggles, I know firsthand how the rights of faculty and staff have been disregarded by this administration at levels unprecedented in my 13 years on the FAMU plus my years as an undergraduate.

I can relate to the "About Me" section of your newsletter. It transcends the specific details of your experience and translates into a snowball turned avalanche over the years as you and other highly-qualified and productive faculty are disenfranchised, devalued, and demoralized. This appears to have recently reached a fever pitch at FAMU. Although each institution of higher learning has its own issues, the lack of qualified experienced professionals at each level of leadership at FAMU reduces the chance that someone will understand what is actually supposed to happen in a given situation.

Though some bring new ideas the infusion of new, inexperienced administrators exacerbates this problem. Though new employees may have "book smarts," and other assets, actual experience and maturity often guide us to make better decisions.

In my opinion, symptoms of this syndrome include:

·        the demonstrated inability to appropriately determine which situations require intervention and which should be left alone;
·        the hiring, firing, over-compensation, and now demotion resulting from poor personnel choices;
·        the apparent lack of inclination to even try to work with UFF;
·        the ill-conceived handing of our engineering school,
·        the open, public disrespect of our Board of Trustees, the FAMU National Alumni Association; President Frederick S. Humphries; the Florida GOP, and Governor Rick Scott;
·        constantly taking credit for the accomplishments of others who came before, and those who continue to work for the betterment of FAMU,
·        public incidents at which we were clearly unprepared for prime-time have run the gambit. I started to provide examples, but they are too embarrassing. We all know at least a few including and not limited to our epic failures at several Board of Governors meetings, especially our epic failure at creating and presenting our University work-plan last year;
·        serious concerns and  criticisms from the Board of Governors, the Faculty Senate, Board of Trustees, and multiple community groups regarding procedural deficiencies (or just ignoring procedures) and continuing problems communicating with constituencies.

Admitting our deficiencies, working to improve, learning from our environment, and soliciting input (and actually considering that input) are very important for those ascending to new leadership roles. It certainly is not necessary to pay “volunteers” $25,000 to offer input. There are University standing and ad hoc committees, experts in our fields, seasoned educators, and past administrators at FAMU and at many other Universities who are willing to help. We have offered LOADS of input to the administration for free. There is no need to continue to create redundant committees to make it appear that this administration listens to constituents.

I personally dropped into the Provost’s office, only to be treated like persona non-grata. When I emailed for an appointment, that request was ignored. When trustees lauded my achievement of a pending Fulbright Award during a Board of Trustees Academic Affairs Committee meeting, our provost rolled her eyes. Nice touch, by the way, and a great way to win friends and influence people and show your maturity and respect of the faculty and our accomplishments.

Further when employees are rewarded for their "loyalty" to the administration based on their willingness to make unethical decisions--such as the hearing outcome you describe—it creates an "over-seer" mentality. As you know, that has also been my experience with this administration. They have encouraged the rise of the self-appointed faculty bashers who win points by facilitating and implementing unfair practices against faculty and staff at all levels. The struggle to attain fairness and equity is real at FAMU and it feels like FAMU's faculty is losing.

Regarding the salary differential between FSU and FAMU faculties--yes, we all know they are already higher paid. To exacerbate the problem, as FSU continues to receive pay raises in much higher increments every year; benefits such as 12% and 15% upon promotion; merit and performance increases and bonuses for exceptional achievements, we only fall further behind.

Further, I personally witnessed the fiasco you mentioned with the slick new collective bargaining attorney. His most memorable statements included:

“I’m not familiar with the previous documents…”
“I’ll have to ramp up on that issue…
“I’m unaware…”

The new attorney did, however, know enough to threaten FAMU faculty in an attempt to bust our tenure system and told us a long story meant to terrify us. The story was told in relation to the on-going objection of the provost to signing employment contracts. However, after probing, it ended up being a story about a non-tenure earning employee on soft money who was fired. The court did not find in his favor in his quest to serve out the term of his contract. The whole meeting was counter-productive at best. I could go on but why waste time on such a waste of time?

As you also mentioned, the lack of ability or inclination to supervise subordinates does not only affect the subordinates--it affects those who work for deans and department chairs who are also inexperienced, ineffective, and/or do not have FAMU nor faculty nor staff's best interests at heart. The FAMU faculty is on the front line. As those of us who are not on the “most favored” list are devalued, demoralized, harassed, fired without cause, denied tenure and promotion for spurious reasons, forced to go without being paid, lied to by University officials, have our Family and Medical Leave Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and Collective Bargaining Agreement rights violated at unprecedented levels...we try to shake it off and remain positive, helpful, dedicated, efficient, and effective in our teaching, dealings with our students, in our research, and service to our departments, schools, and University. However, it is our ethical duty to swear off complacency and stand-up to the bullying.

I admit, I have been guilty of “assuming the position.” However, that arrangement began to appear to be far too enjoyable for others. I decided that quietly “taking it” was encouraging the perpetrators. Now that I have started to actively fight instead of just “taking it,” I am appalled on a weekly basis by the experiences of others on campus and all of the breaches in trust at FAMU. We must help the administration understand that we will not allow the cycle of abuse to continue. It is unacceptable and it is bad for FAMU.

We MUST fight with you as you fight for us and for FAMU. Please ignore those people who question your ability to understand the consensus of the faculty on any issue. There is no need for you to react to requests for a cum-ba-ya moment for the benefit of non-UFF members.

Multiple town hall meetings have been held on campus for that purpose. However, I encourage all eligible, unrepresented faculty and staff to join UFF and come to meetings. They would then understand the “consensus of the faculty” and what is currently happening to faculty and staff at FAMU.

For the sake of FAMU, we do not generally want to publicly share the intricacies of the inadequacies of our inner-workings—we have certainly had enough bad press. However, the time for suffering in silence is over.  I have personally witnessed members of the administration mistreating you like high school children when you were simply trying to achieve fairness and safeguard us against half-baked, dangerous policies and actions.

I fully support you in your efforts to represent UFF members and I appreciate the amount of time and effort you have spent trying to work with FAMU administration(s) to achieve what’s best for FAMU. To those on the outside looking in, seeking to question you about faculty consensus, my answer is this: the assertions, actions, and decisions of Elizabeth Davenport M.Ed., Ph.D., J.D., LLM, etc. fully represent the consensus of the UFF membership at FAMU. Keep up the good work Liz. And keep the faith that there are better times ahead for FAMU in the near future.

Yours in the struggle,
Annette Singleton Jackson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Marketing
Fulbright Scholar