To Kenneth:

My experience not getting an SPP twice in a row is very frustrating. It makes me angry.

  1. Applied twice, the first time I was ranked in the top 50 percentile, the dean followed the language of the contract; the second time I was unranked, and the contract language dropped. Same thing happened to Robert.
  2. I am making 3.5k more than I made 10 years ago. Salary compression is the norm, but my compression is much worse than anyone else’s in the department. Lots of people making more than I do now. Malini makes more than I do. But I am now making considerably less than I did when I came here ten years ago.
  3. My salary is frozen. No merit pay according to the Department plan. No FEO.
  4. No remedy from the Union according to John Biro. The Union sells out senior faculty like me.

Now, I asked you last year if there was anything I needed to do, and you said I could do some things but that I shouldn’t do them just to get an SPP. You said that I deserve the SPP. So are we agreed that there is nothing more I need to do or can do to better my chances?

OK, then, is there anything you can do to help his time?

For example, can you recommend me as an excellent candidate for an SPP? Can you change strong to excellent? You’ve put me a double bind—I am strong, but there’s nothing I can do to get to excellent. Can you take out the sentence beginning with the word “Although” that Pam inserted even after I had Pam strike it from my AFR. The syntax is coded, and it’s damaging. The subordinate clause explains why you gave me a strong. Pam at least gave “me very strong.”

  1. Excuses you may think you have for not saying yes I will say you are an excellent candidate for an SPP to my question:
  2. You have to wait for T & P But all committees are purely advisory; you yourself said so. You can do what you wants.
  3. You have to wait until you know who is applying.

None of these excuses is valid. You doesn’t even review the files. You just make your calls purely on an interpersonal basis. It looks obvious to you that Pam is the best candidate for the SPP. So you rank her number one. Did she get it, btw? But I have problem with that given that what looks obvious to Pam does not always look obvious to the rest of the department. And your support of Phil was similary interpersonal. Talked to Ed, but then Pam’s plan, said money was to be used for grad support, not to retain faculty; but then you used it to retain Phil; though others have gotten much offers and come away with nothing, or in Ed’s case, 7 percent, KS is a peer institution of UF. Same kind of thing with Sid for the UFRF. No call for nominations. But when it comes to retaining Ed, forget it. And when it comes to getting Robert’s money back from the Dean, it’s well, Sue UF for ageism. Dump the solution—expensive, draining—onto him. Of course, Interpersonal relations will always color administrative judgments of performance based on a review of files; but in your case, the evaluation is made entirely on the basis of interpersonal relations. Your don’t review the files of SPP applicants. And all committees, according to you, are purely advisory. I have been on merit pay with John and Pam. Both of them did whatever they wanted. They did not follow the rankings of the committee members. The same thing happens with grad admissions. Malini even challenged Phil once, asking why we are doing this if Phil is not going to follow our recommendations.

So I am forced to draw two conclusions based on your behavior:

First, you won’t recommend me as an excellent candidate for an SPP because you don’t want to do. Given my performance, nothing would be easier for you to write that letter. You wouldn’t even need to read my publications or my teaching evaluations to do it. But here is how you work: When you want something for someone, you get it not matter what the cost to your integrity and moral authority as department chair. You’re willing to be autocratic, legalistic, and undemocratic. When you don’t want to get something, you don’t. So Ed is leaving. Robert won’t get his money back. And, obviously, you are willing to throw me under the bus. You harassed me on two separate occasions about my enrollments and you ranked me low for Summer grant money. That’s the first conclusion. To repeat, you won’t recommend me excellent because you don’t want to do. I am not a priority even though I will be applying for the third year in a row.

Now to my second conclusion. My second conclusion is that you and you alone are entirely responsibility for my not getting an SPP. You know very well that If you do not going to an extremely positive letter stating I am excellent candidate, I will not get an SPP. If you don’t write that letter, you are writing a letter not recommending me, a letter that allows the Dean and anyone else to put me in the out pile. I will not pass go. No one gets an SPP who isn’t rated excellent by his or her chair. To repeat, my second conclusion is that you and no one else are entirely responsibility for my not getting an SPP.

So here’s where we stand. I don’t want to be here any more. I don’t want to be at UF. Would you want to be a school in which your salary was radically compressed and frozen even though your Dean said you were high-performing? Would you want to be a school in which your previous chair went around trashing you to your colleagues behind your back, or at a school in which your present chair will recommend you as an excellent candidate? I seriously doubt it. So I will not want to be here as long as I do not get an SPP. However, my dealings with you will be courteous and civil as long as I am here, OK? One last thing. Pease send me your letter of recommendation as soon as you have written. Can you do that? Thank you.