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Governor's Office On Board In Fight For Universities

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 12, 2008

If there was any doubt that Florida's universities are in trouble, Dean Colson, Gov. Charlie Crists's adviser on higher education, erased it in these remarks to the Florida Board of Governors and university trustees in August:

More Cuts On Way

"... If you are not suffering from shock, you are not being realistic about what is going on in your schools. You've been asked to absorb almost $341 million in cuts in the last year. That's a lot of cuts. We expect there probably would be further cuts this year. We expect three to four percent in cuts in the budget year 09-10. ... All in a time when enrollment demand is increasing, not only in our community colleges and our state universities, but in our graduate and professional schools."

Capping Enrollment

"Public universities have capped enrollments and there are concerns of the future of transfers from community colleges to our state university system. The budget people tell us we can expect four percent or greater inflation in higher education costs in the next year - that will put further strains on the budgets. The bottom line for the public is that state funding per student is down for both the state university and community colleges almost 15 percent."

A Dire Picture

"Our presidents at our public universities are searching to find ways to address the growing compression of faculty and staff salaries and we are headed into a third year without salary increases. That's a pretty dire picture."

Tuition Helps A Little

On the positive side however, the governor did sign the tuition increases that were passed this year by the Legislature, which is different than a year ago. The governor also signed the differential tuition bill, which I think is very, very important. I believe the governor approved every single PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay) project, which not only will help the institutions involved, but will help stimulate our economy. In the past three years, $4.9 billion in PECO projects have been approved by the Legislature and this governor, and that's double what was approved in the three years preceding that. That's a positive sign."

Private Sector Rallies

"Also a positive sign is there is a growing recognition in the private sector and the public affairs community about the critical needs of higher education and the role that higher education plays in promoting business in the state and the future well-being of our state. The debate last spring over the elected commissioner of education heightened everyone's awareness of the critical areas that need attention. No newspaper throughout this state thought we were doing enough for higher education."

Diverse Focus On Higher Ed

"The debate probably jump-started the efforts of the Florida Chamber and the Council of 100 in creating the commission for world class education. The chamber is now leading its innovation caucus. The Florida Board of Governors' Forward By Design is designed to help focus on our public universities and the Legislature has taken the initiative to underwrite Centers of Excellence, and of course the Legislature took on a major initiative in creating the state college system."

Lack Of Coordination

"It would have been nice if all this had happened as a result of a strategic vision all of us had played a part in, but that is not the way we have done higher education in this state and that needs to change. We need to get all the parties with vested interests in this to talk to each other. We need the Board of Governors and the boards of trustees and the Legislature and the governor's office to have a dialogue ... so that going forward we have a strategic vision that's in place and we are all acting on the same page."

Talent Exodus

"I am very concerned about the talent exodus from our colleges and universities. When you don't give pay raises for three years, people are gong to leave. And the people who are going to leave are your best people; they are your best faculty, your (National Institutes of Health)-funded faculty. They are the ones that everybody around the country is building buildings to recruit to fill. If you don't take care of these people, they are gone. It costs a lot more money to bring them in then it does to retain them. You have got to find the money to stop this talent exodus. A drop in the rankings for our universities will be swift. It takes no time to drop, and it takes generations to build back up. We cannot allow this to happen."

A Flagship In Danger

"We have one flagship university that is a top 50 university - if we don't take care of Florida it will drop below 50 overnight. And it takes no time whatsoever to get out of the top 100. If we don't support our other universities, we are never going to get them into the top 100 and we have an obligation to the people and citizens of Florida to do that. I would guess that recruiting talented junior and senior faculty at Florida right now is almost impossible given our budget issues. We also need to recognize that the cost of talent in today's market place for higher education - whether it is for faculty or for administration - is much greater than it used to be. If we are not willing to be competitive, then we are destined to be a second-rate system. We need to change attitudes and we need our leaders in the public to recognize and appreciate the marketplace in which we are competing. We need, starting today, for the BOG and the BOT and the Legislature and the governor's office to work together on these types of issue."

Entrepreneurial Fundraising

"We have to become more entrepreneurial as universities. We have to do a better job of fundraising, a better job of taking ancillary businesses and making money off of them. The Momentum Campaign the University of Miami just finished, we raised ($1.4 billion) in seven years. We don't raise anywhere near that kind of money in our state universities - University of Florida has just started a $1.5 billion campaign. University of Florida is I don't know how many times bigger than the University of Miami - they ought to make that $1.5 billion, and they ought to go to $2 billion and they ought to go to $2.5 billion - because people want to give to higher education. We have to do a better job of raising money and becoming more independent of state funding."

The Bottom Line Is Money

"Your job as a trustee is to hire and fire presidents and to give and raise money. Everything else they give you to do is just show-and-tell in my view, and the presidents are just humoring you. If you don't make raising money a priority, giving money a priority, then you are doing the university a disservice. That doesn't mean everybody has to give $1 million or $10 million, but you need to give whatever your capacity is. We need to make fundraising more of an obligation of everybody involved in these universities."

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