Florida professors are still eyeing jobs in other states, and those who remain say it’s getting harder to fill vacant positions at their universities, according to a recent survey of faculty in Southern states.
The survey, administered by the state chapters of the American Association of University Professors and the United Faculty of Florida union, indicates that Florida’s political climate is a factor in the hiring and retention of university faculty.
More than 3,000 faculty members across 12 states in the South — including 349 from Florida — responded to the survey, which was distributed via email and social media. More than 25,000 faculty are employed across Florida’s 12 public universities.
State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues said in a statement that the survey was not reflective of “actual data.” He pointed to an Inside Higher Education analysis that pointed out that data was scarce about faculty migration.
“The State University System of Florida remains focused on student success and investing in recruiting and retaining the best faculty,” he said. “This is why Florida has been the top-ranked state for higher education since 2017.”
Of the Florida faculty who responded, more than 39% said they have applied for jobs in other states since 2022. Forty-four percent — a number that includes some who have already applied elsewhere — said they planned to look outside Florida in the next academic year. Florida had the region’s second highest share looking for new jobs, behind Louisiana.
Academic freedom and the state’s political climate were the most common complaints among those seeking a job elsewhere. Florida faculty selected those responses at a higher rate than any other state in the region.
“The governor has led a thoroughgoing politicization of higher ed, resulting in attacks on individual faculty, the professoriate, and whole fields of study,” one University of Florida professor wrote.
Others pointed to the state’s recently adopted post-tenure review rules, which one professor said “effectively abolishes tenure in Florida and also discourages senior scholars from pursuing long-term or high-risk research topics.”
At least 10 faculty members across Florida were terminated and dozens more told to improve their performance since the state enacted the review policies, according to Politico.
Half of Florida faculty who have applied elsewhere said changes to diversity, equity and inclusion policies contributed to their decision to leave. More than a third cited LGBTQ+ issues.
One wrote that she’d left her position at the University of Florida after learning that the school might have to turn down a $200,000 grant because she studied “racial bias in decision making.”
Nearly 60% cited concerns over low salary and Florida’s increasing cost of living.
At a recent board of trustees meeting, where the University of South Florida’s president spoke of 300 new faculty joining staff, United Faculty of Florida chapter president Steve Lang warned of “canaries in the coal mine.”
Lang had spoken to three faculty members who left for other schools. He said they didn’t like the “general interference with the university system” from the state and felt salaries didn’t keep up with cost of living. He knew of two faculty who had been at the university for over a decade, but left because they thought new legislation would prohibit their research. On a search committee he served on, he said a top candidate for a job from Columbia University backed out over legislation.
“There are real effects of the legislature trying to micromanage our structure and curriculum,” Lang said.
Faculty in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina all noted an uptick in applicants from Florida, according to the survey.
Those who remain in Florida said it’s harder to attract new talent: 90% of respondents said they’d seen some negative impact on recruiting, the highest rate among any state in the survey.
One professor wrote that her department received over 200 applications for an open position in 2021. Two years later, they’d received less than 30.
The vast majority said their school experienced declines in the number or quality of applicants for open positions. Many said applicants expressed hesitancy about moving to Florida or rejected a school’s offer outright, according to the survey results.
One tenured professor at a Florida public university said the state’s ban on graduate assistants or post-doctoral researchers from “countries of concern” had hurt recruiting.
“This is perceived as specifically directed at China,” the professor wrote. “Even non-Chinese faculty have to face the fact that our graduate students and postdoc talent pool is substantially reduced, and those people will be going to our competitors in other states (or) countries.”
Florida professors were by far the least likely to recommend institutions to out-of-state graduate students and faculty, compared to professors from other states in the region. Due to changes to tenure and state politics, fewer than one in five teachers said they’d encourage colleagues to come to the Sunshine State.
When asked why, one professor wrote: “I live in Florida. Enough said.”