The pattern of faculty collective bargaining in Florida public higher education is anomalous to the national pattern since bargaining is more prevalent in universities than in community colleges. Recent decisions of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (U.S.) and the United States Supreme Court related the appropriateness of faculty collective bargaining to levels of faculty participation in academic governance decisions at Yeshiva University. To determine an explanation for the fore-mentioned anomaly an examination of levels of faculty participation in decision-making processes was conducted in ten selected Florida public community colleges and universities. The ten selected institutions are the University of Florida, The Florida State University, the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, Daytona Beach Community College, Tallahassee Community College, Central Florida Community College, Polk Community College, Chipola Junior College, and Edison Community College. Two of the selected community colleges are unionized, two colleges have formally rejected unionization, and two colleges have never formally voted on faculty unionization. As the result of a system-wide certification election all nine Florida state universities are unionized. / All (273) academic department chairpersons in the ten selected institutions were asked to evaluate faculty participation levels at their institutions by completing the Faculty Participation Questionnnaire (FPQ). This instrument was constructed to solicit information concerning faculty participation in governance practices based upon 19 items chosen to reflect the Yeshiva model of academic governance as described in the forementioned court decisions. / Responses from 85% of the survey population were analyzed by calculating an aggregated mean level of faculty participation for each institution. Categories of institutional types were then statistically correlated with measured levels of faculty participation in governance using nonparametic procedures. / The results indicate that faculty participation levels, in Florida as well as nationally, rise on a continuum from community colleges to comprehensive universities to doctoral degree-granting universities to major research oriented universities which achieve the highest levels of participation. / Among community colleges the pattern of faculty participation and bargaining is very different from the pattern in universities. The highest levels of faculty participation in governance among the selected community colleges were reported for unionized colleges, while the lowest levels were reported for those colleges which have formally rejected faculty collective bargaining. / Differences in levels of faculty participation in governance are most evident in relation to faculty personnel decisions. Faculty members in the selected major research oriented universities participate much more in decisions of faculty appointments, promotion, tenure, and termination than do faculty members in the selected community colleges. / Overall, faculty members in the institutions surveyed exert the greatest amount of influence over academic matters and the least amount of influence over administrative matters. / Finally, academic department chairpersons are excluded from the faculty bargaining unit in the unionized institutions which reported the lowest levels of faculty participation in governance, while chairpersons are most often included within the bargaining unit at those unionized institutions which reported the highest levels of faculty participation in governance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: A, page: 1020. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74415 |
| Contributors | ARMSTRONG, MICHAEL ROBERT., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 127 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
Page generated in 0.0024 seconds