Resolution 2024-2025-1: Bylaw Amendment:
Undergraduate Student Membership on the Undergraduate Policy and Curriculum
Committee and the General Undergraduate Requirements Committee
Whereas, the Undergraduate Policy and Curriculum Committee duties and responsibilities include providing recommendations on undergraduate academic policies, on university-wide undergraduate degree requirements, on proposals for new undergraduate degree programs and minors, and on revisions or elimination of academic programs; and
Whereas, the General Undergraduate Requirements Committee duties and responsibilities include monitoring, and reviewing changes to university-wide undergraduate curriculum requirements such as the General Education Program, civic literacy, and other state-mandated requirements; and
Whereas, the topics discussed by the UPCC and GURC committees are of critical importance to undergraduate students, yet the large population of undergraduate students at UCF currently have no voice in the debate of those topics or the decisions made by the Undergraduate Policy and Curriculum Committee and the General Undergraduate Requirements Committee; and
Whereas, Faculty Senate committees currently include representation by graduate students on eight different Faculty Senate committees, and by undergraduate students on eleven different Faculty Senate committees, including the Information Technology Committee, the Admissions and Standards Committee, the Commencement, Convocations, and Recognition Committee, the Faculty Senate Campus Safety and
Security Committee, the Faculty Senate Student Success Council, the Library Advisory Committee, the Strategic Planning Council, the Textbook Committee, the University Athletics Advisory Committee, the University Honors Committee, the University Parking and Transportation Committee; and
Whereas, the inclusion of an undergraduate student would provide critical perspective and viewpoints to the business conducted by the Undergraduate Policy and Curriculum Committee and by the General Undergraduate Requirements Committee; therefore
Be It Resolved, that the voting membership of the Undergraduate Policy and Curriculum Committee membership be amended to include an undergraduate student, (nominated by the president of the Student Government Association), and
Be It Further Resolved, that the voting membership of the General Undergraduate Requirements Committee be amended to include an undergraduate student, (nominated by the president of the Student Government Association).
- Approved by the Faculty Senate Steering Committee on September 19, 2024
- Approved by the Faculty Senate on October 3, 2024
- Submitted to Provost Michael D. Johnson for information only on October 4, 2024
Resolution 2024-2025-2
Constitution Amendment:
Adjusting Faculty Senate Term Durations to Stagger Senate Terms
within an Academic Unit
Whereas, the UCF Faculty Constitution in Article II.C.3 states:
“3. Terms. The term of each senate seat shall be two years, beginning the first Senate meeting following the confirmation of elections results by the office of the Faculty Senate. A person may seek re-election for more than one term.”; and
Whereas, many representative bodies comprised of elected members, such as the United States Senate, the Florida Senate, and the Orange County Board of Commissioners, utilize staggered terms of their elected members; and
Whereas, academic units that are part of the UCF Faculty Senate would be best served if their unit senators had staggered terms, with some senators elected in even years and others elected in odd years, to allow for continuity of experienced members, smooth transitions of responsibilities after elections, institutional memory for an individual academic unit, and the reduced risk of complete turnover of all members from an academic unit; and
Whereas, adjusting the term length of a senate seat to stagger election terms in an academic unit can be considered beneficial to that unit in instances where all senators from that academic unit currently have the same two-year term, or when a single change in the apportionment of senators in an academic unit due to yearly apportionment could result in all senators from that academic unit having the same
two year term; therefore
Be it Resolved, that the UCF Faculty Constitution be amended in Article II.C.3 to state:
- Terms.
a. The term of each senate seat shall be two years, with the provision for adjusting a senate term duration to create staggered terms of the elected members from an academic unit.
b. Adjusting a senate term duration to stagger senate seats within an academic unit can be considered when all senate members from an academic unit have the same two-year term, or when a single change in the number of senators in an academic unit due to yearly apportionment
could result in all senate members from an academic unit having the same two-year term.
i. At any point in the year, the senators in an academic unit and/or the Faculty Senate leadership can identify academic units that could potentially benefit from adjusting an upcoming senate term for
staggering senate terms as described above.
ii. If the number of senators in an academic unit changes due to yearly apportionment, the Faculty Senate leadership shall identify and notify those academic units that could potentially benefit from
adjusting an upcoming senate term to maintain staggered senate terms in the unit.
iii. There is a two-step approval process to adjust a senate term duration for a senate election to either create or maintain staggered senate terms.
a. First, the current senators within an academic unit can approve, by majority vote, a proposal for adjusting the term of a specific senate seat. The proposal must identify if the adjusted term is for an at-large seat or a specific department seat and must also identify if the adjusted term will be
a one-year or three-year term In the upcoming senate election.
b. Second, the senate eligible faculty from the unit can ratify the proposal by a majority vote. Any such adjusted senate term that is ratified shall convert to a standard two-year senate term upon completion.
c. Failure to complete the two steps outlined above will result in the senate elections for the unit continuing without introducing an adjusted term for staggering purposes.
c. Senate terms begin the first Faculty Senate meeting following the confirmation of elections results by the office of the Faculty Senate, typically, in April of each year. A person may seek re-election for more than one term.
- Approved by the Faculty Senate Steering Committee on September 19, 2024
- Approved by the Faculty Senate on October 3, 2024
- Submitted to President Alexander Cartwright for action on October 4, 2024
Resolution 2024-2025-4
Periodic Faculty Salary Analyses
across the University of Central Florida
Whereas, salary (or wage) erosion may occur when inflation lowers real wages as measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Cost Index (ECI) for Education and the Consumer Price Index for Urban areas (CPI-U); and
Whereas, salary compression may occur when salary differential between junior and senior faculty is smaller than it should be based on external market forces; and
Whereas, salary inversion occurs when salary compression, left unexamined or unadjusted over time, results in junior faculty salaries being greater than senior faculty salaries; and
Whereas, salary inequities associated with gender/race/ethnicity may occur independent of other variables; and
Whereas, salary (or wage) erosion, salary compression, salary inversion, and salary inequities threaten the integrity of faculty ranks, morale, and retention at the University of Central Florida relative to College and University Professional Association (CUPA) peers; and
Whereas, while Faculty Senate Resolution 2019-2020-17 established regular periodic studies (years ending in 0 or 5), the resulting reports used datasets and indexes from different years and sources as outlined below:
The “Salary Equity Study” described “Salary and job data were based on subsets, described below, from a total (UCF) dataset containing faculty data from 1993 – 2020. Any salary increases (retroactive or otherwise) and any tenure status or job status changes applied after this date are not included in this sample. Salary, demographics, and other information on faculty members were gathered from PeopleSoft. In order to ensure data integrity, some annual records kept for longstanding employees prior to 2002 may not be included in the sample.”
The “Salary Compression and Inversion Study” examined “whether compression and inversion was due to market forces at the same ranks, a comparison of these ratios with those from 69 institutional peers who shared the same characteristics1 as UCF (Public, Very High Research) was performed using faculty salary data from the College and University Professional Association2 (CUPA-HR) for the 2019 academic year”
The “Additional Index Rate Analyses” for wage erosion utilized the “Employment Cost Index for Education (2014-2019),” “Consumer Price Index for Urban Areas (CPI-U) (2014-2019),”and “CUPA Peers Increases (2014-2019),”
Whereas, the administration may need additional time to convert PeopleSoft data to a WorkDay format; an extended period of time in order to collect data from different sources that are
1 Based on the Carnegie Classifications framework set by Indiana University’s Center for Postsecondary in Research, which identifies groups of comparable institutions.
2 CUPA peer institutions were comprised of public, very high research institutions, and include salaries of faculty who are classified in non-administrative or coordinator roles.
available at different times in the year and in different years; and the flexibility to report pieces of analysis separately as opportunity avails itself; therefore,
Be it resolved that the University of Central Florida administration update the faculty salary study process that was previously used so that future studies address faculty retention, and
Be it further resolved that the guidance for future faculty salary studies be:
the University of Central Florida administration in consultation with the Faculty Senate shall, on a regular basis, collect and analyze both tenure-track and non-tenure-earning faculty salary and retention data across and within units of the UCF system, and UCF in comparison to competing peer universities by rank and appropriate groupings of 2-digit Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) level codes for 1) salary (or wage) erosion; 2) salary compression, 3) salary inversion, 4) salary inequities based on gender/race/ethnicity; and 5) faculty retention. A five-year time interval is suggested for regular periodic reports (years ending in 0 or 5) with data five years since the year of the same data in the prior report. Each report will be made accessible to all faculty on the Institutional Knowledge Analytics website shortly after each analysis is completed, ideally within 1-2 months from completion of the report.
- Approved by the Faculty Senate Steering Committee on November 21, 2024
- Approved by the Faculty Senate on December 5, 2024
- Submitted to