Sasse puts focus on under-performing academics at Florida

Former US senator Ben Sasse is starting to lay out his plans for the University of Florida, calling for greater scrutiny of faculty in one of the US’ harshest political environments for academia.

After months of quietly meeting with professors and other members of the 60,000-student flagship campus in Gainesville, Dr Sasse has begun public presentations that included proposing faculty reviews aimed at ending the “pretty deep sense of inequity” created by professors who have low teaching loads or low levels of research output.

The former Republican senator from Nebraska was hired last November and took office in February, replacing Kent Fuchs, who stepped down after repeated instances of political interference from the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. Mr DeSantis, a 2024 US presidential contender, has repeatedly pushed for partisan control over the governance and curricular content of the state’s public colleges and universities.

Dr Sasse arrived to campus protests, largely over his past comments against same-sex marriage, then spent months outside public view as he formulated a governing strategy. In a recent meeting with faculty where he began publicly sharing some initial goals for his presidency, Dr Sasse insisted that he had little time for political intrigue.

Faculty have been giving mixed assessments, with some welcoming Dr Sasse’s ideas and wanting more details, others suggesting that in the private meetings Dr Sasse outlined darker versions of his intentions, particularly regarding course cuts and professors who don’t measure up.

Those with optimism include Amanda Phalin, a senior lecturer in business management and former chair of faculty senate. “Faculty, myself included, will not always agree with all of his ideas,” Dr Phalin said. “But he is open to dialogue and cooperation, and I appreciate him leading the community in taking a deep and strategic look at where we are, where we want to go and how we get there.”

Other faculty told the student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, that the new president spoke to them privately of seeking a 30 per cent reduction in the number of academic departments and griped about professors who teach only one or two classes per semester and research faculty who sit outside the 10 per cent but who win nearly 40 per cent of the campus’ research grants.

Paul Ortiz, a professor of history who until recently served as president of the faculty labour union, said that on one level much of Dr Sasse’s talk of cutting faculty and academic programmes could be ignored as political posturing meant to please Mr DeSantis and his allies. Implementing such threats will be far more difficult, he said, because union contracts limit such flexibility and voters would rebel if lawmakers seriously threatened educational opportunities for their children. 

“Putting out a perception that you're going to cut, and you’re going to fire professors, is great optics in the DeSantis and Trump movements,” Professor Ortiz said.

That said, Professor Ortiz acknowledged that fear can be powerful. He cited the reaction of faculty teaching gender studies who talked as if their jobs were lost when state lawmakers put forth a bill to end their department. “That's what it's like in Florida now – the DeSantis movement rules by fear,” he said.

The new president was alarming faculty with complaints such as his contention that most of the university’s research money comes from just 84 professors, Professor Ortiz said.

“A lot of faculty will say, Hey, are you part of the 84?” Professor Ortiz said. “That’s something that really has had an effect on morale.” 

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com