United Faculty of Florida (UFF) at FAMU President Elizabeth Davenport
criticized Mangum in 2015 for failing to follow through on her talk about the
possibly of reducing course loads, which could give faculty members more time
to perform research.
“When President Elmira Mangum was interviewing for her post
at FAMU, she agreed that faculty, who teach more than any other faculty in the
system, deserved relief in their course load and a decent raise,” Davenport
wrote in an op-ed for the Florida Times-Union. “Once she became president,
these concerns were replaced with social media promotion on Twitter and
Facebook, concerts at Carnegie Hall, trips around the country and world, and
filling administrative positions.”
Bettye Grable, who has served as the FAMU faculty senate
president since 2014, says that Robinson is now taking the first step toward
addressing faculty concerns over how their workloads compare to those of
professors at similar universities.
The Miami Herald reported that Grable “said [Robinson] has responded to some of the faculty’s concerns, including authorizing a study of instructors’ classroom workloads. Grable said she was pleased that Robinson was taking ‘ownership’ of the workload issue rather than blaming it on past administrators.”
Grable and Davenport also both said that Mangum did not
demonstrate adequate leadership during the 2016 collective bargaining process.
In her 2015-2016 evaluation of Mangum, Grable stated that
the president should “have the President's Union negotiations team to always
meet as agreed upon with FAMU-UFF and show greater adherence to the Collective
Bargaining Agreement, the University Academic Constitution, and to follow the
rules and regulations in the Faculty Handbook.”
Davenport was even more blunt in her public statements about
the situation.
“For over eight months, we have been coming to the table
ready to represent our faculty and conclude negotiations; that is not the case
for your team,” Davenport wrote in a letter to
Mangum in July 2016. “In fact, most proposals have been made by UFF and then
ignored, and when items are proposed by your team, they usually involve gross
infringement of academic freedom.”
The UFF chapter at FAMU declared an impasse in the 2016
collective bargaining process with the Mangum administration that lasted through
the end of the Mangum presidency on September 15, 2016.
Robinson worked successfully to end the impasse with a new
collective bargaining agreement that UFF FAMU approved with a 122-0 vote.
“UFF FAMU is grateful to have come to a resolution that is
best for faculty and FAMU,” Davenport said.