Layoff Grant Heston

Check out this article on UCF negotiations with the faculty union. Here’s the short version: the faculty want more money, and UCF won’t give it to them. I’ve got three observations:

First, the faculty pointed out that Hitt gets giant raises. And yes, as UCF likes to incessantly observe, we all know that a big chunk of his salary comes from the UCF Foundation. However, when I get hit up for money from the Foundation they never tell me that my donation will help make Hitt even wealthier. And every time the Foundation channels money into Hitt’s bank account, those are dollars that can’t go towards important things like scholarships. The faculty union should also point out that high level administrators (who are often faculty members) receive much higher raises than regular faculty.

Second, is Grant Heston losing brain cells along with his hairline? He argues that the high student to faculty ratio at UCF (28.8 to 1) isn’t hurting education quality because UCF is getting a record number of applications. Heston argues that if a lot of people (in this case, teenagers) decide to do something then it must be a sound decision. What about all the people who bought Enron stock or, more recently, people who bought houses right before the housing market collapsed? There were a lot of them so they must have made the correct decision. Grant Heston, like so many other administrators, needs to audit a critical thinking class.

Third, if Grant Heston’s job were eliminated, could the University survive? There would be a little less bullshit in world, but the university would run fine without him. With the money that was saved on his salary, UCF could hire one professor or two instructors.