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University turf war

Phil Handy says he has worked hard "to try to get a new world order" in Florida education, which is no doubt a tall order for a man who by trade is a Winter Park financier. But the state's immodest education board chairman must have been out of town that day in November 2002 when voters took universities away from him. Otherwise, he wouldn't so freely condescend to the constitutionally empowered university Board of Governors.

Handy has created his own task force with the expressed purpose of reshaping higher education, and in the process he has exposed the growing divide in Florida between those who oversee higher education and those who think they do. His push for more online degrees and four-year community college programs has pushed Board of Governors vice chairman John Dasburg, the former Burger King CEO, over the edge.

"There will be serious litigation if they attempt directly or indirectly to affect the state university system," Dasburg told the Palm Beach Post. "Bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, Ph.D.s are completely overseen by the Board of Governors, period, end of story."

The subject of Handy's inquiry is a worthy one. He wants to find ways to make more room for the crush of high school graduates who want higher education. With the exception of Florida Gulf Coast, the state hasn't built a new university in more than three decades. Five of the current 11 campuses rank among the 30 largest in the nation. Pennsylvania has a slightly smaller overall enrollment, but more than four times the number of universities.

The solution will almost certainly require the state to do more than simply build new universities. It may need to explore a third tier of colleges, much like California, focused only on select bachelor's programs. It may need to consider whether the community colleges, some of which now grant bachelor's degrees, should play a larger or different role.

The problem is that Handy is not the person to make this extraordinarily complex call. The task force he created does include a variety of university representatives, but Dasburg and Board of Governors chairwoman Carolyn Roberts are afterthoughts and Handy didn't bother to wait for the new appointment of university chancellor Mark Rosenberg. Roberts is co-chairman in name only, with no input on the agenda or the curiously selected statistics, and she was not consulted about Handy's decision to include master's degrees in the mix.

Handy and his board vice chairman, T. Willard Fair, have reacted with a familiar indignation. "When we talk about redesigning the delivery system, then certain institutions begin to circle the wagons," Fair told his colleagues. "It's in our best interests not to become very parochial and limited in our decisionmaking."

Note how Fair is so quick to dismiss different ideas as "parochial" and "limited." That's standard operating procedure in the Department of Education, except that it is usually reserved for inquisitive teachers or their unions or unruly Democrats. In this case, the target is a group of fellow gubernatorial appointees who have a constitutional mandate to make their own judgments about universities. In Handy's "new world order," the audacity is stifling.

[Last modified October 27, 2005, 01:28:19]