sounds like he was well-liked by students and faculty, but could not find the reason ‘why he was ousted’ on google. (Not surprising, since its a personnel matter and the Trustees prolly should not be making it public.)
I don’t know how I feel about this. Teaching is a uniquely challenging profession to review performance- in younger grades, there are so many variables outside a teacher’s control that can impact performance review - a magnet or competitive private where kids are self motivated and already among the highest performers are going to make the teacher look great; while a low performing class (due to again variables teacher had nothing to do with) might make the same teacher look like they’re underperforming.
I don’t know if there’s comparable variables at play in colleges but I suspect so. I also have a friend who taught at a private college where student reviews went into her performance— when she pushed students to take notes, not rely on her to spoon feed them with PowerPoint slides, or was tough on grading, she received bad reviews, impacting performance. When she complied with what she felt was their over-neediness for graduate level program, reviews improved. Personally, I’d rather her keep with the high expectations but then her reviews were dinged.
I’ve also seen news lately of Florida expanding/loosening teacher certification requirements for police and military to enter the field - off topic I know. I may be recalling inaccurately, but I thought that was particularly interesting. I would not be happy.
You’re looking at the wrong item. @roycroftmom is correct.
She said Texas football subsidizes other sports. Texas football is always profitable. Per your website Texas football generated $98 million vs $43 milion in expenses. Texas basketball lost money in 2020-2021 but should turn a profit this upcoming year and in future years because they hired Chris Beard and just built a new arena. They lost money in “other sports”.
When they join the SEC, the revenues should increase substantially.
Texas sports (especially football) is one of the biggest brands in college sports.
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Although DeSantis’ move on tenure appeared to be very calculated to affect professors whose research and stances did not align with some of those popular in parts of Florida, I’m not sure if this case will turn out to be an example of it.
I strongly suspect that if the director had been voicing policies counter to the ones DeSantis promotes, that it would have been mentioned in the article. Additionally, he’s still a professor at UF. After his sabbatical, he will resume just being an engineering professor. The Independent Florida Gator did write:
On Tuesday afternoon, UF Provost Joe Glover took responsibility for Law’s termination in a statement to The Alligator.
“The University of Florida Board of Trustees lost confidence in Dr. Mark Law’s leadership as director of UF’s Honors Program,” Glover wrote. “But the decision to remove him from that position was mine and I stand by it.”
If the provost is okay claiming responsibility for the termination, then I suspect that there may have been some kind of wrongdoing. Perhaps there was a consensual romantic relationship with someone associated with the honors college. Or maybe there was evidence of preferential treatment for some applicants to the honors college that was not a part of the university’s intention. The university doesn’t want to embarrass itself or possibly some of its students/employees, so they dismiss him from this role while he still remains a professor. I have absolutely no proof for those conjectures, but it’s just a sense I have arising from my own observations of academia.
I think your conjectures are wildly inappropriate. Unless you have facts, then I would suggest not guessing.
This is a man who has been respected for many years and he’s a person.
I do NOT know him but I’m certainly not going to speculate on his character unless I’m given facts.
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This is an administrative position, not his tenured position. The Board of trustees are political appointees and they have to listen to parents and the public about things like why their neighbor’s cousin for into honors and their own child with a 4.0gpa and a high ACT score didn’t, why the honors program isn’t fair, and why there aren’t as many people from Miami in the honors program as there are from Orlando. The honors program at UF gives a great deal of power to students in the program to pick the new members and sometimes 20 year olds are not the best judges for 18 year olds (many don’t think they should be picking the next class of sorority sisters or who makes it in the band either).
There may have been a lot of public grumbling, even if other professors thought he was doing a ‘good job’ (what does that mean to other professors who might have little to do with the program and how it runs?) and even if those in honors (who are of course happy they were the ones chosen) think it is just peachy. Personnel decisions are hard. And confidential so we are only hearing Law’s side, saying he was really good and well liked. The board may have a file full of complaints, we just don’t (and won’t) know.
It is often easier for the Board to be able to say “Yes, we hear you. We’re making changes” to the big group of disgruntled parents of those who didn’t get in, even if there are no actual changes made by the next director, than to to fight with those parents.
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I agree with this thinking. Much more acceptable discussion imo than speculating on his character like a PP did.
Let’s stick to academic considerations.
(And, there has been a lot of chatter for years about how honors decision is made and by whom…so that seems much more reasonable and respectable conjecture.)
I personally know of a few beloved professors who were highly-respected by their colleagues and had students very enthusiastic about them and their classes. And then one day, despite tenure status (or even emeritus status), they’re asked to leave their positions and/or the campus. There is lots of public befuddlement, but for those who were close enough to know, it turns out that there were some inappropriate actions that had taken place. Was that the case here? Unknown at this point. Do I think it is plausible? Unfortunately, yes.
The honors college director was given a one-month notice that he would no longer have that position. But he’s able to remain a professor and have a sabbatical (and I’d be very curious to know if that sabbatical was planned prior to his letter of dismissal). I suspect that UF was hoping that he would take the demotion as a rebuke and learn his lesson and move into a less public role. Announcing his departure two days before his last day and mentioning his desire to help with the transition doesn’t particularly impress me…that’s what should have been going on for the last month.
I hope that I am wrong about my suspicions. But I do not think it is inappropriate to voice them as this was a topic that became quite heated over the summer with mods needing to delete posts, slow the thread, etc. Providing an explanation of how this decision could be completely unrelated to the change in tenured-employee review seemed appropriate. As debating is not allowed, however, I will note that you find my previous post inappropriate and will not post further about the decision related to the honors college director.
But I don’t think this was an academic consideration. Professors can be mean and grumpy but still be good teachers and writers and retain their jobs, especially if they have tenure. Administrators are kind of the opposite, and they have to get along with the Trustees and, because the Trustees are appointed by the governor and the Bd of Governors (political apptees themselves), administrators have to play nice and be political without being political. They are basically ‘at will’ employees,* and the trustees can dismiss them for any reason or no reason, as long as that reason isn’t a protected class like race, sex, religion (highly likely the Trustees will give no reason to prevent from being sued).
*Law did have a contract so the contract may set out requirements for dismissal or even have him being paid through the contract.
Honestly - they canned an ‘elected’ official in Tampa…just because Ron wanted to. I don’t know what happened here but in Florida, it’s now the wild Wild West. I mean if you can get rid of an elected person just because….what protections can anyone (such as the Honors Dean) realistically have ??
And most seem ok with it. I go for work, just this week in fact and most everyone likes the current state of things it seems.
It remains to be seen how things shake out with the suspended state attorney but it appears Florida law might permit such action by the Governor:
Comments like this represent everything that is wrong with the internet.
This was a political decision for political reasons. Elections have consequences - I get it. This is the first of many substantial changes coming to UF.
My point is simply - and we have no idea what happened with the Honors Dean - but it’s clear when every other word out of politician’s mouths is ‘woke’ this and ‘woke’ that and they defy the will of the people by tossing an elected person - anything is possible with a Dean or anyone else.
We don’t know so we shouldn’t speculate. But clearly the rules have changed.
I thought woke had to do with me getting out of bed. I learned in the last two years that’s a secondary meaning. 
So far, there is zero public facts that indicate the reason for the firing. Perhaps you have some insight that you can share?
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I do know more than I feel comfortable sharing in this forum. If you Google the response from Paul Ortiz, the President of the Faculty Union at UF, I can assure you that what he states about this situation is accurate.
The remarks from Paul Ortiz are pretty consistent with what I am hearing from educator friends in FL.
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the response by Ortiz that is written in Inside higher Ed is no surprise given his role – faculty always complain about management – but is extremely generic and says nothing specific about firing Law. What did the Dr. Law or Honors program do to get the Trustees to reach far down into the ranks of Admin jobs to terminate him?
“We’re under siege in Florida,” Ortiz said. “There’s constant threats to intellectual freedom and tenure and a whole raft of issues.”
Since Dr. Law remains a tenured faculty member, was his 'intellectual freedom" being challenged or a “raft of [other] issues.”
- Was the Honors program offering courses that the Trustees objected to?
- Were the Trustees objecting to the Honors Dorm?
- Did they fire Law bcos he believed in two application essays (as opposed to the current 1)?
- Something else?
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Article posted today on Inside Higher Ed that prompted me to me circle back to this post:
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“…and passed legislation to shield the identities of applications for college presidencies, revealing only three finalists at the end of the process. (The University of Florida, however, revealed only one finalist recently.)”
For a state that has a Sunshine Law and ‘talks’ about intellectual freedom, this says it all.
This is about an anti-science, anti-reason, religious-based attack on education.
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