THREADS:

• State College of Florida’s Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to eliminate tenure at the school, making it the first community college in the state not to offer continuing contracts to faculty.
• Faculty say getting rid of tenure will make it easier for the board to replace professors they do not agree with and will make it harder to recruit new, high-quality teachers
• Board members say this will better align the school’s hiring/firing practices with what private businesses do and will make it easier to weed out bad teachers

The State College of Florida will be the only community college in the state not to offer tenure after the school’s Board of Trustees voted to eliminate it on Tuesday.

Faculty are furious and are thinking about forming a union.

But what do the changes mean for SCF’s more than 12,000 students?

One of the biggest possible impacts on students will be whether or not the school can recruit high-quality teachers without offering tenure. Current faculty say the fact that SCF will be the only school not to offer tenure, also known as continuing contracts, will put it at a distinct disadvantage when competing for faculty with other community colleges across the state. SCF is well respected in the state for its academic programs now, particularly its nursing program. SCF nursing students had among the highest first-attempt passing rates in the state on the national licensing exam for registered nurses, with more than 96 percent of its 152 nursing students passing the exam in 2015. Board members brushed off the idea that not offering tenure would affect hiring Tuesday, saying it would be beneficial if continuing contracts were eliminated at all community colleges statewide.

Local resident Rhanna Bazzini voices opposition to ending tenure at SCF. Photo by Nick Adams

Faculty also worry that the elimination of tenure will mean the Board of Trustees can more easily get rid of professors they do not agree with. Board members have said that is not the case, and that it will be harder to fire teachers because all teachers who have taught at the school for five years will have due process if they are being considered for termination, instead of the current situation where such due process is only afforded to tenured teachers. But faculty say the board could have increased those protections without doing away with tenure, and that the board could still fire someone for political reasons because each member was appointed by Gov. Rick Scott and have no experience in education.

But these side effects are months away from materializing, if they materialize at all. Tenure will no longer be offered to new faculty hired after July 1, so current teachers will not be personally affected.

Robyn Bell, president of SCF’s Faculty Senate, said professors will continue to do their jobs well despite the vote.

“We have so much to do day-to-day to ensure our students get the best education possible,” Bell said. “We will continue to do that despite this vote.”