{"id":94153,"date":"2019-02-01T17:51:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T22:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=94153"},"modified":"2019-02-19T12:58:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:58:03","slug":"letter-discouraged-employee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/letter-discouraged-employee\/","title":{"rendered":"My Letter to a \u2018Discouraged Employee\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I received a thoughtful <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/web.ucf.edu\/email\/2019-02-01-president-message\/res\/Discouraged+Employee+Letter.pdf\">letter from a \u201cDiscouraged Employee\u201d <\/a>this week. I read it carefully and encourage you to do the same.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This employee could represent anyone on our campus and deserves a response. I hope this reaches the author.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Dear Discouraged Employee,<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sorry I offended you and your Administration and Finance colleagues in my message about Trevor Colbourn Hall.<\/p>\n<p>I hope you will accept my apology. I\u2019d also like to share my experience with this building so that you can see my comments were about choices made by a few key decision makers in the division, not you and your colleagues.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What Happened Was Wrong<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Simply put, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/sh\/nu30twr1fq0iv6f\/AAA7vI589e-dTz78V4NDd99Ma?dl=0\">an independent investigation<\/a>, senior officials in the Administration and Finance division knowingly used $38 million of restricted state funds to build a building. Trevor Colbourn Hall wasn\u2019t the only one. Over a number of years, about $85 million was spent, or planned to be spent, inappropriately.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not right. Even if this was done to solve a problem, leaders can\u2019t break rules they don\u2019t like. And they shouldn\u2019t ask others to do the same.<\/p>\n<p>UCF is an incredible institution with faculty and staff who believe in our mission and act with integrity. That is our culture; I see it every day.<\/p>\n<p>As I said after yesterday\u2019s Board of Governors\u2019 meeting, I am in this for the long haul and am committed to leading us to a better future. That starts with rebuilding trust on campus and in our community and state.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What I Knew<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As provost, my focus was accommodating our growing faculty and planning which academic units would go into Trevor Colbourn Hall. That\u2019s what a provost does.<\/p>\n<p>A CFO is responsible for identifying funds for construction projects and making sure they\u2019re appropriate to use.<\/p>\n<p>There have been a lot of recent headlines that, when I was provost, I knew there was a funding plan that involved using Education &amp; General (E&amp;G) dollars for Trevor Colbourn Hall. That\u2019s true \u2026 but I didn\u2019t know and wasn\u2019t told that these funds were wrong to use.<\/p>\n<p>If I had known that, I would have spoken up and worked to stop it.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What\u2019s Next <\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As president, I am responsible for owning and fixing the problems of the past. Now, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/update-trevor-colbourn-hall-investigation\/\">we are making changes<\/a> that will make us stronger.<\/p>\n<p>You suggest I meet as many of UCF\u2019s dedicated and hardworking employees as I can. That\u2019s a great idea, and I am scheduling additional visits to colleges and divisions to hear from you.<\/p>\n<p>I believe in the power of UCF\u2019s people. Together, we will continue changing lives and creating opportunities for the tens of thousands of students and an entire community who trusts us to do just that.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p><em>UCF President Dale Whittaker<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I received a thoughtful letter from a \u201cDiscouraged Employee\u201d this week. I read it carefully and encourage you to do the same. This employee could represent anyone on our campus and deserves a response. I hope this reaches the author. Dear Discouraged Employee, I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m sorry I offended you and your Administration and Finance colleagues in my message about&hellip;","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":94165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[12127],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-94153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","category-community","tag-dale-whittaker"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Letter to a \u2018Discouraged Employee\u2019 | 海角直播 News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I received a thoughtful letter from a \u201cDiscouraged Employee\u201d this week. 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