Oct. 7, 2002
revisions:  Oct. 30, 2002; Nov. 4, 2002;

INTRODUCTION

 When faculty in a variety of fields and disciplines and on the various campuses of Florida Community College at Jacksonville (FCCJ) were asked to review early drafts of this white paper, they were asked, in effect, "Forget what may be happening to faculty.  Instead, let's look at any decisions that may be harming our students.  Keep your focus on the students, and, if you see any factual errors, be sure to give corrections."

 Instructors, counselors, and librarians had concerns about conditions that damage student success and sound academic practices.  Early drafts were reviewed by dozens of faculty, including many members of the faculty senate, several outstanding professors of the year, and others.  This report incorporates many of their perspectives.

Major Recommendations to Promote Student Success

 Community college trustees, of course, are unpaid and serve in their positions largely for civic reasons.  Although they will receive most of their information from their respective administrations, they are also bombarded by suggestions from citizens and interest groups about actions they need to take.

 Trustees walk a tightrope between avoiding micromanaging their respective institutions and determining when some trustee interest is warranted.  If they heed recommendations only from their administrations, they risk permitting the emergence of campus-style Enrons, Tycos, and Global Crossings.

 After suitable research and legitimate data to confirm the recommendations of this report, the trustees may wish to implement the following recommendations, which will be discussed later in this white paper.  They are all designed to prevent academic suffocation:

  1.  Ensure that students do not encounter unnecessary frustrations in their attempts to complete their courses.  Other payment options can make it easier for students to get into desired classes.

  2.  Insist that flexible minimums for classes be used to accommodate course offerings, courses educationally needing fewer students, and averages of faculty members' loads.

  3.  Ensure that the second (or third) courses of sequential courses are offered, even if smaller sections are necessary to accommodate the needs of students on a campus.

  4.  Insist that course offerings take into consideration the distances that students have to drive to campuses where it is most logical for them to take courses.

  5.  Explore the practice of St. Johns River Community College, which tries to let classes make with at least ten students.

  6.  Insist that the campuses and centers coordinate their scheduling.

  7.  Encourage classes being voluntarily taught on a reduced point basis since it costs nothing more, benefits the students, and helps the campus.

  8.  Protect one of FCCJ's marketing tools:  smaller classes that make students feel more comfortable than they would be in giant classes in the lower levels of universities.

  9.  Make sure that distance students don't get lost in sections that have grown so large that the students don't have reasonable access to their instructors.  Also, examine the pass/fail ratios of classes taught in regular classrooms, via telecourses, or via the internet.

 10.  Ensure that all students receive a proper orientation when they enter the college.

 11.  Insist to see any scholarly studies that supposedly justify scheduling practices that are radically different from what has been used at FCCJ.  The bottom line should be this criterion:  Does this work best for the student?

 12.  Make sure that students in occupational / workforce courses have all data pertaining to the future of their programs and that students can trust data and decisions about the viability of programs.  Also, insist that adequate program "C.P.R." is given to programs that may be in trouble.

 13.  Insist that funds for equipment and supplies be used early enough in an academic year to help students.

 14.  Make sure that adequate instruction is occurring, especially in courses whose students may affect the public safety and health.

 15.  Ensure that students have enough full-time instructors in various fields to enable efficient scheduling.

 16.  Control unnecessary increases in costs that are passed on to the students.

Discussion of Problems

 When the FCCJ administration shut down the departmental chair system, it argued, in effect, that "the administration knows best."  Faculty, trustees, students, state legislators, and the public could accept that judgment, along with the new structure, if the managing benefitted students.  However, the fall semester of 2002-2003 opened with a tidal wave of erratic decisions that swamped many students who are trying to have a reasonable access to an education.  It is working against their families and employees, not to mention against their classroom teachers.

 Clearly, as campus-level administrations carry out edicts from district, the college seems to be saying that, if classes have high enrollments, that factor, and that alone, means that FCCJ is efficient and is promoting student access.  The college is not.  Let's use an analogy here to explain that point:  If we have a hermetically sealed room, with 20 students and sufficient oxygen for the students to breathe through an hour of class-time, then all is well.  However, if we increase the number of students to 25 or 30, with the oxygen supply remaining the same, the students suffer.  Academic suffocation results.

 Students are being denied access to classes and face many unnecessary obstacles when they try to enroll at FCCJ:

 1.  UNNECESSARY CANCELLATIONS--The administration was canceling classes one or two weeks early and dropping students who hadn't paid yet, even though students at Downtown and North historically register at the last minute because they are still scraping together enough money for their tuition.  The administration then permitted late registration to drag on, causing students to enter classes off balance because they weren't present when the instructors discussed key procedures and expectations for their courses.  Students often found they had less access to some of their instructors, who were being forced to teach on two or more campuses since smaller sections were being cancelled.

 2.  THE ARBITRARY "FIFTEEN" AND THE MYSTICAL "THIRTY"--For the first time in the college's history, the administrators have latched onto the notion that only classes with 30 students in them are truly efficient.  They have also enforced an across-the-board, arbitrary minimum of 15 students for classes to make.  With a minimum of exceptions, they used the figure of 15 for classes that traditionally were capped at 30; they used 15 for classes traditionally capped at 25 or 20.

 The figure 15 has been a standard in the past, but it has never been applied mindlessly, as is being currently done.  For example, it was always understood that a remedial class, with a cap of 12 or 20 students could "make" with 7 to 12 students, depending on the cap.  The second half of sequential courses was also permitted to make with lower than the preferred enrollment.  A former department chair in mathematics said "no consideration whatsoever is being given [on my campus] to helping students complete their programs in such areas as engineering, computer science, and mathematics. In fact, even with most classes having two more students each than in the past, important capstone and other unique classes are being cancelled."  The former chair noted these economic considerations:  "Since in-state tuition is $54.10 per credit hour, 10 students would generate enough revenue to pay for a class. Of course, if the $201.85 for out-of-state tuition is used (which reflects what the college receives for any student), then the money generated by three students more than covers the money that we would have paid to the adjunct. An argument may be that those students in the cancelled class will take another class at the college to replace the cancelled class.  However, if only three students fail to do that, then the lost money will exceed what it cost to have paid the adjunct whose class is being taken by the full-time instructor.  To compound the matter, if the student is enrolled in other classes, he or she may drop some of those classes because of being unable to work out a suitable schedule."

 The mystical figure of 30 students in a class also creates academic suffocation.  For example, when many mathematics students are placed into a class, they may realize that the course is too difficult for them.  Math faculty then encourage these students to change to a lower level class to give them a better chance of succeeding.  However, with classes being packed to their override limit of 30 for most mathematics classes, these students have little or no choice in moving to another class.  Once again, they are suffocated by the system.

 A former department chair said, "[Our] department [in the previous fall term] had 2,478 students enrolled in 97 sections, which came to an average of 25.55 students per class.  That term we cancelled three classes. This fall we had 2,547 students enrolled in 96 sections for an average of 26.53 students, and we had seven classes cancelled.   Two of those cancelled classes had enrollments of ten and eight and were the only section of those classes offered at the campus. If they had been allowed to run, the average class size would have been 26.17, still above the average of last fall."

 Trustees need to examine whether they wish to encourage extensive cancelling of classes -- which does little or nothing regarding any "efficiency," but mainly handicaps our customers, the students.

 Natural science faculty note that their lab courses are being overridden, even though the labs may have work stations for only 24 students.  When 26 students are enrolled in a class that only has 24 work stations, the students have to start sharing.  Four students per lab could then argue, if they were disgruntled enough to envision a legal suit against the college, that they were shortchanged and that they encountered an example of academic suffocation.

 3.  CANCELLATION OF SEQUENCE COURSES--The campuses have even been cancelling the second sequence of a science or advanced mathematics class because it only had eight or nine students, even though sections on other campuses were already filled to capacity.  In many cases, the students involved did not have the option of driving to another campus, and they likely were delayed a term in their graduation.

 4.  "CROSS-STATE" DRIVING--When classes are cancelled, students often find they are forced to "drive across state" (if we think in terms of the smaller states in the U.S.).  For example, the FCCJ district includes Nassau and Duval counties (1,426 square miles), which is larger than Rhode Island (1,231 square miles) and sixty percent the size of Delaware (2,396 square miles).

 If a student is commuting to the Yulee Center or North Campus from Hilliard or Callahan, he or she already is engaging in a substantial amount of driving.  When a course is cancelled at those locations, then the student is handicapped by having to wait additional terms for the course or perhaps to drive to South, Kent, or Downtown.

 Campus-level administrators often think of registration as a localized problem, apparently thinking that most of Kent's students live in the Riverside area; most of South's, nearby; and so on.  If students live on one side of town and work on another, they may take courses at different campuses by choice because of the convenience.

 However, when the college makes a course unreasonably inconvenient for them, the students either delay taking the course, drop out altogether, or attempt it at an inconvenient location and perhaps end up failing or dropping the courses.

 5.  CLERICAL LOGJAMS VS. THE ST. JOHNS RIVER CC PRACTICE--Hundreds of students ended up in classes having only 12, 13, or 14 students.  When they found their classes were cancelled, they had to go back through the registration/drop-add process, generally taking up time of two to four clerks in Student Services and the Business Office.  To find other classes, they had to change their existing schedules, disrupting other classes in the process, and they often had to change work schedules or child-care arrangements, disrupting employers or their families.  Oftentimes, they found that they would simply take fewer classes, or none at all (reduced "access" in both cases).

 By contrast, the adjacent St. Johns River CC has a different policy.  A SJRCC official (who was formerly with FCCJ) said, since St. Johns River CC is small, it offers more small classes than larger schools do, especially in programs where the classes are offered only once or twice a year.  Normally SJRCC will not let a class with fewer than 10 go if it has other classes that the students can take, but sometimes it makes an exception to that rule when it has no alternatives for the instructor.  That policy gives stability to the enrollment process and also makes sure that St. Johns River CC does not have to re-do hundreds of unnecessary drop-adds.

 It is also well to remember that, if FCCJ students on the southern end of Duval decide they don't want to encounter academic suffocation, they often can easily drive the few additional miles to a more accommodating SJRCC campus.

 6.  LACK OF COORDINATION--Faculty frequently complain that a minimum of coordination is occurring among the campuses.  This lack of coordination often creates conflicts in schedule and course offering that frustrate students.  Under the former "matrix" management at the college, "functioning" deans had college-wide responsibilities for their respective disciplines.  They made a point of making sure that all campuses and centers did not offer a specific course only on Monday nights; they would have, say, the course offered at North on a Monday; South, on a Tuesday; Kent, on a Wednesday; and Downtown, on a Thursday.  Although the current administration uses a different structure, it could still insist that classes be better coordinated; however, it has essentially created "four kingdoms," where each campus president is free to interpret policy his or her way and to schedule classes and assignments in supposedly individual ways.  Instead of promoting creative individuality, this approach has often encouraged erratic, capricious, and incompetent decisions because of a lack of college-wide focus.

 7.  NO REDUCED POINTS CLASSES--The administration has also vowed that it would not permit any classes to be taught on a reduced point basis.  This very peculiar decision only handicaps students, who would not have access to certain classes.  The administration cannot claim that eliminating these classes saves taxpayers any money at all because, instead of being paid the full rate to teach a class of, say 10 students, a faculty member would only be paid two-thirds of the rate.  When a faculty member teaches a class at reduced points, he or she sacrifices money to ensure that a certain class is offered for students on his or her campus.  However, for no good fiscal reason, except possibly for its unwarranted obsession with the "mystical thirty" mentioned earlier, the administration denies the students access to this course.

 8.  STUFFING CLASSES--The administration has also stuffed as many students as possible into classes, again apparently arguing "access," when, in reality, the students and academic quality suffer the most.  As an example, "Gordon Rule" classes should have a maximum of 22 students in Composition I and II classes.  The college historically capped such classes at 25, arguing that, after early drops, the average would be 22.  However, during the registration period, this term saw English Composition I (ENC 1101) sections frequently go to 26 and 27, even to 29, and, on a weekend class, to 33.  (Other disciplines have similar reports.)  The administration ignores the basic math of "access."  For example, if a class has 25 students and, say, 100 units of Student Access Time, each student has 4 units.  If the class is increased to 30 to 33, each student loses Access Time, down to 3.33 to 3.03.  Since many freshmen transfer to FCCJ from the University of Florida, the University of Central Florida, or Florida State University, where they weren't successful in giant classes, they praise the smaller classes at FCCJ.  Stuffing classes, therefore, will end up destroying a key marketing attraction for potential FCCJ students.

 9.  TELECOURSES DOUBLED IN SIZE--The administration was DOUBLING the number of students enrolled in non-Gordon Rule telecourses, putting the students in danger of being academically suffocated.  When the telecourse classes are increased from 30 to 60, individual instructors end up teaching less, grading more, etc., because they are having to expend more energy acting as registrars, counselors, and technicians.  Although educators speak glowingly of the latest technology, fads, etc., it is worth remembering that telecourses really aren't that successful in having program and course completions.  Of the 30 students enrolled in a distance course, a few may be housebound by young children and find telecourses and online courses to be ideal ways to do college work.  Even the self-starters of these students are often insecure, however, and need prompt and effective feedback from their instructors.  When the student is one person among 60 on a roll, he or she will likely fail to get high quality responses that one student in a class of 30 would receive.  Once again, academic suffocation occurs.

 When faculty complain that the large classes work against students, they receive these typical responses from administrators:
 

 --"The classes are very expensive and aren't paying for themselves."

 --"You faculty [wink, wink] should know how to control the numbers by running off the excess students."

 --"After the first week, only 30 students will be trying to do any work, and that's a normal academic load."

 Such remarks, even when made in a teasing manner, reflect several serious academic and institutional flaws.  For example, the logic ignores the fact that the legislature has restricted the number of times that students may take specific courses.  When administrators encourage faculty to run off students, they often want to look the other way while the refund deadline passes.  Students then end up being penalized $162.30 for being unwise enough to sign up for a distance course at FCCJ.  In addition, since the state legislature is emphasizing the importance of completions, "running students off" runs counter to the wishes of lawmakers who want to see efficiency in higher education.  Finally, if administrators are expecting to lose half of the students in a distance course, the college is being extremely negligent in not starting out by placing students in courses with "delivery systems" that best suit their ability to learn.  It is worthwhile emphasizing that the statewide councils for community colleges and c.c. president have been discussing that many legislators are focusing almost exclusively on seeking a higher percentage of completers for A.A., A.A.S. and A.S. degree programs.  The current legislature wants to stress performance-based funding, and, when the students are unnecessarily handicapped, a c.c. administration hurts its own funding prospects and calls into question its accountability and judgment.

 10.  LACK OF ADEQUATE ORIENTATION--The administration, having failed to fill vacant counseling positions with qualified faculty counselors, also attempted to ditch key elements of the orientation-registration process, to some degree because it did not have the staff to handle the students and because of poor program coordination between campuses.  This decision, made by the President’s Cabinet, was rescinded on some campuses only after strenuous objections by counselors concerned with student success.  When students do not receive an adequate orientation to college, their academic success is being short-circuited before they ever step into the classroom.

 11.  DATA/STUDIES TO JUSTIFY DECISIONS--Administrators are quick to argue, "Studies don't show any correlation between class size and student success."   They are taking this to mean that they can stuff as many students into a room as seats will allow (and even more than available seats).  This team rarely backs up its decisions with any academic studies that validate stuffing classes as the best option, or even a viable option, to produce student success.  Each discipline has its scholarly organizations that discuss ideal class sizes for, say, political science classes, English, mathematics, and other areas.  For example, scholarly organizations in communications often argue that ideal classes should only have 16 or so students.  Since a faculty member generally realizes that he or she doesn't live in an ideal world, he or she may expect to see 22 or 25 students in a class.  However, when the administration deliberately, and often vindictively, stuffs classes to 27 to 33 students, they are trashing academic quality.  Faculty in universities may have giant lecture-based classes of 200 to 500 students, but they also have a cadre of graduate assistants to help with the course.  By contrast, at FCCJ, it is one-class, one instructor.

 A review of scholarly research reveals that studies may not detect any major differences in larger and smaller classes.  When larger classes are successful, however, these conditions exist:
 

 -- The course lends itself to presentations for large rooms or auditoriums.

 -- The instructor is comfortable with all the conditions and perhaps enjoys interacting "on stage," as it were.

 -- The instructor isn't a one-person show, but has adequate support from graduate assistants, clerks, to tutors.

 -- The instructor has received training on how to best interact with giant classes.

 -- The instructor is not the sole person grading papers, tests, etc.

 12.  PROGRAM CANCELLATIONS--Students are being frustrated and complaining to faculty about the cancelling of several occupational / workforce programs.  The students say these programs are necessary for them to obtain jobs.  They seek help from faculty teaching in the programs, but these faculty all generally say the same things:
 

 --"My chain of command only mentioned that the program might need to be cancelled, but they did not show any data to justify the decision."

 --"My chain of command showed the students and me some job statistics from the state, but we were able to show data from the same agency that contradicted the original data."

 --"The chain of command made no effort to resuscitate, or 'give C.P.R.' to, the program."

 --"Any efforts made to save the program were made by students and me."

 13.  USE FUNDS PROMPTLY--Monies approved by the trustees for supplies and equipment in classrooms and laboratories often end up being unused for much of an academic year.  The students then suffer because their instructors are unable to present as much material or demonstrate as many experiments as would be preferred.  For example, in the natural sciences, instructors may find that they do not have enough petri dishes for their classes, because of a delay in the release of funds.  Consequently, instead of teaching two of the five methodologies about how to make pure cultures, they may be able to demonstrate only one lab method.  Many other experiments can flow from the two methodologies, but, with knowledge of only one method, the FCCJ students may find that they are handicapped when they transfer to universities, where other students would have more traditional instruction.

 14.  QUALITY MONITORING--Since the college has neglected to keep enough instructors in some departments at the campuses, the students may find that they are being taught by instructors who are unable to give them full attention, perhaps because they are adjuncts working other jobs or because their full-time instructors are being academically suffocated, too.  This remark is typical:  "In some science courses, students can get an 'A' without learning very much.  If students shop around for easy professors, they can get an 'A' in Anatomy, Chemistry, Biology, Microbiology without much effort.  This is not fair to the students who are competing to get into the various programs, specifically Nursing.  Other science people will verify this to be a unfortunate fact.  The problem could be solved by having an exit exam from all the sciences, and, if the student did not pass, then this would be noted on their transcript.  If one mentions this to an administrator nothing is ever done."

 Across-the-board departmental or exit exams aren't necessary for all classes.  For example, in a literature class, a student can be perfectly well educated with a focus on, say, the English Romantic Poets.  The fact that he or she missed out on Thackeray is immaterial.  One instructor in Humanities Mainsteams (HUM 2236) may focus more on music; another, more on literature; a third, more on philosophy.  Students in each can emerge with a good education.

 On the other hand, if students will need information to pass nursing, medical lab technology, an aviation class, etc., they need to know certain basic information to keep from injuring or accidentally killing anyone.

 15.  ADEQUATE NUMBER OF FULL-TIME INSTRUCTORS--In several departments, the administrations over the years have failed to replace full-timers when they retire, die, or leave teaching.  Consequently, the students find erratic schedules as the campus tries to locate adjunct instructors to teach various sections.  Sometimes, the adjuncts who are hired lack the qualifications that the students need to ensure academic success.  Instead of going through all departments, let's look at the nursing program, which obviously has a major impact on public health.  In the mid-1990s, the nursing program at FCCJ had 28 full-time faculty, who handled 288 students.  The number of F-T faculty has dropped to 18, but the program is now handling 354 students a year.  On the surface, this suggests greater efficiency.  However, allied health faculty often have restrictions on the numbers of students they can handle, and monitor, because they may also be monitoring the students as they interact with patients in medical facilities.  Moreover, the students find that they are taking some courses (NUR 1210 and NUR 1025) from adjuncts who had never taught the courses as lead teachers.  These students may be facing two problems in their future:  insufficient training as they take state certification tests and increased liability as they are placed into situations where they could inadvertently spark civil suits against themselves and the college.

 16.  AVOID HITTING STUDENTS UNNECESSARILY IN THE WALLET--The administration is proposing that the lab fees for students be increased from $5 to $30 per course.  Currently, for a three-credit-hour course, a student pays $5 on top of the $162.30 for tuition, for a 3 percent relationship.  An increase to $30 increases the percentage to 18.5 percent.  These increases are largely proposed to be across the board, even for distance students who may be taking courses via television and the internet or being in an ITV* class, but on a receiving end where a lab may not be operating.  The students would pay the amounts even though their respective instructors may not be requiring lab work to be done.  They would pay the amount even though a particular lab may not any full-time tutors for courses they are taking.  Another danger for the students is that the administration may simply see increased lab fees as another method to generate funds for an extensive bureaucracy.

 (*ITV stands for Interactive Television.  A class may have twelve students at, say, North Campus and six at the Betty Cook Center or the Downtown Campus.)

Summary of Suggested Actions to Promote Student Success

 The trustees should insist upon the following remedial actions:

 1.  Since the legislature has changed the funding formula from emphasizing warm bodies in a class (FTEs or full-time equivalent enrollment) to program and class completions, the students should be encouraged to finish courses.  The college should see if some payment options can make it easier for the students, and the administration should not frustrate the students in their energies.

 2.  When a program is only offered on a single campus, students may be having to drive long distances to take specific courses.  Flexible minimums should be used in classes being taught on each campus or center.

 3.  Campuses should offer the second or third courses in various sequences so that students may avoid delays in their graduation.

 4.  Campuses should consider the long distances that students may have to drive to take courses, especially from northern Nassau and St. Marys to the Duval campuses.

 5.  As much as possible, the college should avoid canceling classes and should examine the practice at St. Johns River Community College, which, in effect, says:  "If ten of you sign up for a class, it will be there."

 6.  The administration should coordinate class offerings on the campuses and centers.

 7.  Since reduced points sections do not cost the taxpayers anything additional, the college should accommodate the students by offering such courses when instructors agree to teach reduced point classes at the reduced rate.

 8.  FCCJ retains many of its students because of the smaller class sizes and the friendly one-on-one interaction between themselves and their instructors.  The college should strive to hold onto this quality.

 9.  The college should engage in an intensive study regarding completions in lecture/classroom-based courses, telecourses, and online courses.  We should make certain that students do not get lost in giant-sized sections that prevent their distance instructors from giving adequate one-on-one time.  If students are repeatedly failing at, say, online courses, then these students should be counseled and required to take courses using different approaches.

 10.  Students should be given thorough orientations when they come to the college in order to give them a sound academic footing and to point them on the road to success.

 11.  We should all ask to see any scholarly studies that support drastic changes in the student-teacher interaction (i.e., any rationale for major increases in class sizes).

 12.  The college should be open and above board regarding the health of occupational/workforce courses, sharing data with students and faculty about the viability of the program and working energetically to keep programs healthy.

 13.  The college should use funds for equipment and supplies early enough in an academic year to help students.

 14.  For courses that have an impact on public health and safety, the college should ensure that adequate instruction is occurring for future workers in health-care, aviation, etc.

 15.  The students are entitled to have courses taught by qualified, available full-time faculty, again, especially when potential liability or public safety factors are concerned.

 16.  The students should not encounter major increases in fees since large, unjustified fee increases only delay their progress in college as they reduce the number of courses.

 *  *  *

 To wrap up the discussion of these problems, it is well to consider that the college has not seen this degree of academic problems since the mid-1970s, when uncontrolled practices made FJC the bane of the state auditor, Exhibit A in a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee report on V. A. attendance abuse, etc.  Back then, the college did not have mandatory testing and placement.  Its campus managers often pressured faculty not to "reinforce a pattern of failure in students' lives" (translation: "go ahead and socially pass the students anyway"). Its campus managers cancelled classes with low enrollment, then found that the remaining classes had filled up, and then had to reopen sections.

 In those days, for academic excellence, faculty fought back by going outside the chain of command and, at times, outside of the institution.  Faculty lobbied then state legislators Tommy Hazouri, Steve Pajcic, Arnett Girardeau, Mary Singleton, Andy Johnson, and others.  They shared perspectives with the likes of South Florida's Jack Gordon, and eventually helped to cause positive changes, as when the Gordon Rules were introduced for higher education and secondary schools.

 Faculty regularly sent reports to, or met with, individual trustees.  They sent reports to state legislators and the media, who eventually wondered if it wasn't time to change the top leadership at the college.  They drew up ad hoc reports for accreditation visiting teams, and they gave such reports to any outside management consultants that the board called in.

 When good men and women on the board of trustees did nothing back then, the college ended up being embarrassed in the media.

 FCCJ can avoid public embarrassment by instituting some reforms that will help our students.

Howard Denson (hd3nson@aol.com; 766-6559) has been a community college instructor for 33 years.  At Florida Junior/Community College at Jacksonville, he was elected department chair three times by members of his department. Active in the school, he has been a member of the faculty senate, a former president of the Faculty Federation for thirteen years, a long-time member of the planning board of the Florida First Coast Writers' Festival, and a member of the senate of the United Faculty of Florida. He resigned all offices with the UFF and Faculty Federation, in order to be unconstrained in writing and distributing the report. A former reporter for The Pensacola News-Journal, The Tallahassee Democrat, and The Birmingham News, he has written numerous reports, opinion columns, articles, and letters to the editor over the past 30 years, often focusing on efficiency and excellence in education.  He has also been a member of a K-12 accreditation team for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
 

These pages do not represent the views and positions of the FCCJ administration, the FCCJ Board of Trustees, the Faculty Federation, its bargaining team, except where they hold similar views pertaining to freedom, justice, equity, sound fiscal practices, and the All-American way.  The white-paper has only been presented to the Faculty Federation for informational purposes.