A Times Editorial

Scaring them away

It's little wonder that all of the candidates for the University of Florida presidency have withdrawn. Who would want to come into a system that may soon lose its Board of Regents and become a political quagmire?

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 3, 2000

Nobody wants to be the University of Florida's new president, and no wonder. Only a fool would jeopardize a successful academic career by wading into the political quagmire Florida's university system is about to become.

Chancellor Adam Herbert and the Board of Regents will choose the new UF president, but Tallahassee lawmakers are hastily going about the business of eliminating their jobs. So the next UF president will answer to -- whom? Well, the plotters of this coup intend to create a new super-Board of Education whose titular head will nominally be responsible for overseeing the university system (as well as our community colleges, public schools and kindergartens). But the real control of the university system will rest squarely with the governor and legislative leaders. No self-respecting university administrator would become a pawn in that political game.

That's the biggest reason the six finalists for the UF job have evaporated to zero since details of the regents' imminent demise became clear. The best candidate in the pool took the top post at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill instead. In Florida's current political climate, the choice between running North Carolina's flagship university and taking the UF job qualifies as the ultimate no-brainer. But the other five finalists didn't have better offers to consider when lawmakers suddenly made the UF job much less appealing.

It's not just that Gov. Jeb Bush and legislative meddlers such as House Speaker John Thrasher and incoming Senate President John MacKay don't have the slightest clue about how to run a university system. They don't have a clue that they don't have a clue. Bush talks breezily about creating a "seamless" education system, but if his thoughts about this radical restructuring go beyond such buzz words, he hasn't shared them with the public. Meanwhile, Thrasher and other powerful FSU boosters are ramming through a new medical school for their alma mater; they care not a whit about how the cost of a new school would affect budgets in the rest of the system and compromise the reputations of Florida's existing medical schools.

Other lawmakers are equally insistent on new law schools at Florida A&M and Florida International -- and equally unconcerned with their effect on the broader system. And Sen. Don Sullivan, R-Seminole, is using various parliamentary chicanery to resurrect his plan to carve up the University of South Florida, turn USF's St. Petersburg campus into a glorified community college and decimate Sarasota's respected New College.

Historically, the chancellor and Board of Regents have served as a buffer against such crass political manipulation -- which is precisely why so many lawmakers have their knives out for them. The governor and legislative leaders insist their plans will create a stronger university system, but candidates for the UF job understand what is happening and already have voted with their feet.

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