While the Board of Trustees sorts out the problems at the Florida State College at Jacksonville, the faculty says they want to be heard in the process.

“The faculty are telling us they’re feeling very ignored by the administration and by the Board,” said Karen Morian, President of the FSCJ Chapter of United Faculty of Florida.

The Board is conducting another meeting Tuesday at 10 a.m. to discuss employment matters (see related artice).  Morian says they’re going to ask the board to conduct a “climate survey” of the entire FSCJ faculty.

Why?

“To find out where we are,” Morian said.  “To find out how faculty feel about the way things are going and the way the college is dealing with some of these issues that are coming to life.”

Morian says she’s speaking on behalf of the elected faculty-senate as well as the teachers union.  They’re asking the FSCJ Board to conduct the survey so they have no stake in it.  If the union does it, then she says people may assume the union is just trying to gain power at the negotiating table.

But Morian says they’ve been wanted to do a broad survey “for months since some of these revelations started coming out.”  If the board does not agree to conduct the survey, Morian says the union will get it done through an independent party.

 “The faculty is a huge resource.  These are people with Masters and PHDs, and they’re not being asked to help solve the college’s problems. They didn’t help create them, but they are certainly willing to help solve them.”

She says many have concerns over President Steve Wallace.

“There are an awful lot of faculty who have grave concerns about where his leadership has brought us,” Morian said.

She says if the Board does not give them an answer at Tuesday’s meeting, they will give them a deadline of the November board meeting.  If no answer by then, they will go ahead with an independent party.