Chronicle of Higher Education includes UFF-UCF in coverage of financial scandal at UCF

The crisis at Central Florida has further strained relations between administrators and some of the university’s unionized faculty members. For them, this isn’t a byzantine story about a university’s tapping the wrong pot of money for a building in violation of some obscure regulation. It’s the story of an administration willfully taking money that should have gone to faculty salaries, all the while poor-mouthing to the union in collective-bargaining sessions.
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“The faculty-union position is that we are not anywhere near the bottom of this,” said Scott Launier, president of the university’s chapter of the United Faculty of Florida. “We’ve known for years that we’ve been lied to about how much money there was to compensate and provide for faculty.”
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Launier found a tongue-in-cheek reason to be upbeat about the unfolding story.
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“Every year, the university has said, ‘We would like to give you more money, but we don’t have it,'” said Launier, a writing and rhetoric instructor. “It is nice that they have finally changed that narrative, and they have finally said, ‘We have the money, we just don’t want to give it to you.’ At least we’re having an honest conversation.”

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