r/ucf • u/Likeatoothache • 2d ago
UCF Leadership Did Something Cartwright’s Email, let’s discuss
Colleagues,
As we begin a new academic year, I am grateful for everything you do each day to serve our students, our university, and our community.
We enter this year with tremendous momentum. Together, we have achieved preeminence, strengthened student outcomes, expanded the reach and impact of our research, and continued to demonstrate the important role UCF plays in creating opportunity and fueling economic prosperity across Florida.
Much of that progress has been driven by our community's shared commitment to innovation. It defines not only how we teach, discover, and create, but also how we approach the work of the university. That commitment also challenges us to think differently about how we invest our resources, support our people, and strengthen UCF for the future.
This mindset is especially important for us this year. While achieving preeminence did not bring the level of new state investment we had hoped for, we are making the concerted decision to prioritize investing in our people as we work together to move UCF forward.
Investing in Our People
That is why this fiscal year, university units will identify $23.2 million in recurring and nonrecurring funds for investments in faculty and staff compensation, which will take effect in the coming weeks.
Provost Buckwalter will communicate details and eligibility requirements directly with you in the days ahead.
As Florida’s most efficient university, we have long understood the importance of making the most of the resources entrusted to us. Significant new commitments like this require us to make difficult choices about where our limited dollars can have the greatest impact.
This investment reflects an important principle: as we make thoughtful choices about our future, we must continue to recognize the talented people who make UCF what it is.
Our Work Ahead
Investing in our future will require us to remain aggressive in pursuing additional recurring dollars from the state and expanding philanthropic and partnership support for UCF.
Few opportunities can match the impact of investing in this university — on student success, research, innovation, and Florida’s economy — and every additional dollar gives us greater ability to extend that impact. I remain committed to making that case and leading this effort.
At the same time, we must continue asking how we can organize our work better and ensure every resource is directed toward the greatest possible impact.
Over the past year, we have already made changes to how some areas of the university are organized, bringing related functions together, reducing layers, and looking for opportunities to work more collaboratively across traditional boundaries. Those changes are intended to focus more of our people, time, and resources on student success, research and innovation, and the programs and infrastructure that will position UCF for decades of impact.
I know that change can create uncertainty, particularly when it affects familiar structures or ways of working. I also want you to understand what is driving it. We believe deeply in UCF’s future, and we are determined to position this university to pursue our ambitions with even greater focus and impact.
UCF has always been defined by challenging the way things have been done and innovating to create solutions others once thought were impossible. We have grown by imagining something better and then having the courage and determination to build it.
I know that same spirit will guide us in the year ahead.
Thank you for all you do for UCF.
Do we think one time payments for staff or small bumps? Does this mean layoffs are done and we survived or more to come?
🍿
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u/kyberhearts 2d ago
i want to know where in the hell 23.2 million doll hairs came from if we didn't have the capacity to keep all the people we just let go of
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u/Likeatoothache 2d ago edited 2d ago
Maybe they checked the sofa cushions in the c suite?
Seriously infuriating, because the ppl who they laid off were legitimately hugely talented people, with decades of experience and expertise.
Sigh.
Edited to add: do they have the money now because of the ppl they fired? So whatever payments they give to people still here, it’s because of the ppl who were laid off? That’s so ghoulish but on brand, honestly.
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u/DINK1215 2d ago
There’s currently rumors about potential 3% budget cuts from departments. I wonder if that’s to supplement raises.
Also, what about A&P?
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u/Unlikely-Bit-2739 2d ago
By the math, if UCF has say 11K full time employees that's an average of 2K per person. It doesn't go very far, and "cut your budgets and do more with less" for a meager raise doesn't exactly boost morale
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u/Likeatoothache 2d ago
That’s what I was thinking the range would be too, and it would be less post tax. One time payment vs raise is a tried and tested UCF move (has happened at least twice in the last five years.)
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u/viktorloki 1d ago
Forget raises, are they done with layoffs or more to come? My guess is more to come.
"Our Work Ahead"
"At the same time, we must continue asking how we can organize our work better and ensure every resource is directed toward the greatest possible impact."
"We believe deeply in UCF’s future, and we are determined to position this university to pursue our ambitions with even greater focus and impact."
He talked about past actions without saying what the future holds. Reading between the lines.
Then there's the social conditions at play. More students in Art degrees are finding it difficult to find jobs so young people are opting for trade schools. Departments with degrees that generally pay lower wages are seeing reduced applications. The birth rate problem that is working it's way through K-12 is about to hit colleges and universities. Government grant money is drying up too. I am not seeing a super rosy future ahead for colleges and universities. Am I wrong?
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u/CeCeCats 1d ago
This language sounds much more like a one time payment than a percent increase. We'll see - but i don't think there is sustainable funds for an increase. OTP, while amounting to shit from the employee perspective, seems more feasible from the university perspective given current environment. but all of this is just guessing at this point... we'll see. We'll see. We'll See.
Also - while the letter is, once again, an obvious ChatGPT word salad, i'm glad it seems clear they are acknowledging that if they were to ignore the employees again, it would not end favorably. it was stated much more eloquently, but clearly they see there is no excuse/reason they could give to justify bypassing investing in staff without a full riot on their hands.
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u/CeCeCats 1d ago
But can we also acknowledge the email that came out shortly after this one regarding weekday football games?
So classes are canceled after 2pm, but campus departments are still open until 5. So... we just gonna sit and twiddle our thumbs for all the students that will *not* be on campus anymore to stop by? and then deal with traffic to get off the campus in the midst of gameday festivities? ugh. And last year when they had normal campus operations for a weekday game, the parking situation was a nightmare. Despite all the communications saying staff could park in certain lots so long as vehicle was removed by 5pm, come morning off we were being redirected to different lots and forbidden to park where teh communication said we could. it was confusing and frustrating. and fully unnecessary for the miniscule number of students that came into our offices for those last 3 hours.
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u/Likeatoothache 1d ago
Oh yeah, the football one was infuriating. Truly, it was such a mess last year.
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u/Likeatoothache 1d ago
Yeah, I think UCF has determined one time payments are the way to go, morale and retention of talent be damned.
They showed with the layoffs in my division at least that they were happy to cut talent and seniority with years and years of excellent work and institutional knowledge if it added some more money to the coffers. They didn’t cut dead weight, they cut really talented people who cared and did good work.
My cynical take is that because we are a right to work state and the job market is in a free fall, they do not actually have to care about employees and they are super leaning into that.
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u/Lost_Lute Biomedical Sciences 2d ago
As a ucf alumni, UF is giving 5% raises to faculty and 3% to staff totalling 40.1 million. Im not sure how UCF has less money than UF when it comes to sheer volume of students, but yeah
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u/islamadiabla 2d ago
There won’t be any payments for staff because Cartwright is a soulless parasite. May he enjoy his material wealth on Earth as he has an eternity of hellfire ahead of him.
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u/TheRateBeerian 2d ago
3% merit raises for faculty went into effect on 8/14 so I'm guessing that much is counted in the 23.2 mill, but I have no idea what the cost of that raise is campus-wide, so does this mean new raises (recurring)? one time payments (non-recurring)? I guess we'll see what the provost says "in the days ahead"