Genshaft, ensnarled in parochial quagmire, can take high road

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© St. Petersburg Times
published June 24, 2002

The roots of St. Petersburg's decidedly mixed feelings toward the University of South Florida -- which is your state university and my state university, no matter where we live around here -- are deep and go back more than 40 years.

The two sides of Tampa Bay competed bitterly to be the site of a new state university back in the mid 1950s. Pinellas' hopes were dashed when the last rival site still in the running was flooded by a storm about the time the selection committee was here.

North Tampa and Temple Terrace seemed like a much safer bet for USF, besides having plenty of room for all the growth that was to come. This reasoning did not keep the Pinellas side, and a certain newspaper, from mocking and protesting until the very end.

(A quarter-century later, I like to think, subconscious vestiges of that bitterness contributed to St. Petersburg's decision to place its baseball stadium as far as possible from the bridges leading to Tampa. Take that.)

St. Petersburg got a consolation prize in 1965 when USF opened a branch campus there. Today that campus is a charming, beautiful, vibrant and growing part of St. Petersburg's downtown. The city is rightfully proud and possessive of it.

Yet old feelings never lie far beneath the surface. What has happened now is that the still-learning president of USF, Judy Genshaft, has unnecessarily insulted and angered the locals. She has removed the popular head of the St. Petersburg campus, denying she was doing it, soon after appearing with him all sweetness and light before the City Council. She has given different statements about her intentions for that campus' accreditation, then attacked anybody who questioned the difference. She is the Doctor of Denial -- everything is fine, it's swell, and anybody who says otherwise is just a silly old poop.

I understand her frustration. She has gotten tangled in St. Petersburg parochialism while trying to run a much bigger university. But somebody has to be the grownup, and I nominate her. She needs to say tough but true things to people's faces more often. She needs to say it consistently to different people on successive days. She also needs to replace some of the Pollyanna staff around her that goes into such a fussy twitter and writes memos whining about perceived enemies.

Understand that I am cheering for Genshaft and against the home team. I find the separatist movement in Pinellas County, and among its representatives in the Legislature, to be parochial and ridiculous. Why trade a healthy branch campus of a major research university for Barely Accredited U? At most I would tweak control of the purse strings to make sure St. Petersburg's strengths, such as marine science, never got ignored.

Did I say "barely" accredited? No, scratch that. The letter from the accreditation committee, listing the obstacles to a semiautonomous St. Petersburg campus, is far more gloomy than anybody has admitted. (I especially like the part where they list individual instructors and ask for their qualifications.)

Me, I am an old-fashioned guy, a university Tory. I want a strong, central state university system, like that Bob Graham wants to bring back. Locally, I want a strong, central university with a strong president, who makes politicians think twice before meddling with her. That is accomplished by truth-telling, good political skills and inner strength, not memo writing and wagon circling.

The worst case here is a long period of protracted whininess on both sides, ending with a forced separation by the Legislature, which Pinellas County would celebrate as a great victory. It would give Gov. Jeb Bush the chance to stuff a few more of his fundraising buddies onto a politicized, decentralized, sunshine-avoiding board while Florida's higher education "system" continues to perk deeper into the limestone. No doubt, even before the first M.S. in Advanced Typing was awarded at good old B.A.U., the clamor would begin for a football team. You know, just like Tampa.

-- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.

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