TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Taking Charge Of University System

ADVERTISEMENT

By VICKIE CHACHERE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 12, 2008

Florida's state universities have fallen on hard times.

A financial crisis has forced universities to shut their doors to thousands of students, and other states are poaching the best and brightest faculty members. Efforts to push Florida's three largest universities - the University of Florida, Florida State and the University of South Florida - into higher tiers of public universities have stagnated.

Meanwhile, the Florida Board of Governor's survived a knock-down, drag-out fight with state legislators who wanted to dismantle the voter-created panel this spring and put the universities under legislative control. The power struggle created an anti-academic atmosphere that damaged the state's reputation on a national level.

The task of leading the university system out of this morass now falls to Sheila McDevitt, who was appointed chairwoman of the Board of Governors in June. She sat down for her first interview with The Tampa Tribune's editorial board recently.

McDevitt, a Tampa attorney who served for 26 years as the senior vice president and general counsel for TECO and has long been involved in higher education issues, has an unenviable task. Even before the economic crisis, Florida's universities were poorly funded. Now they face even further cuts.

Faculty members are demoralized. Students paying higher tuition are getting no relief from large classes and sparse academic advisement. And Florida remains at or near the bottom of national rankings for student-to-faculty ratios and graduation rates.

Florida's universities face a turbulent future, one that will have ripple effects on the state's economy.

Fewer than 27 percent of Floridians between the ages of 25 and 64 have bachelor's degrees or higher. The national average is 29.2 percent and in the 10 most productive states, more than one-third of citizens have earned at least a four-year college degree.

Why does that matter? Because the state's per capita gross domestic product is just $33,718, well below the national average of $37,545 and $26,000 less than states like Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Minnesota.

"It's all about the student," McDevitt said of the effort to refocus state leaders on higher education. "But it's also all about the economy."

McDevitt made it clear she will tackle the formidable challenges systematically - starting with rebuilding bridges with the legislative and executive branches and marshaling the influence of Florida's business community. Her goal is to get those who play a role in setting policy or financing the system moving in the same direction.

The Council of 100 - a group of the state's most influential business leaders - and the Florida Chamber of Commerce have formed work groups that are formulating positions on how to bolster the state university system. Gov. Charlie Crist is doing the same, with a multipoint plan expected in coming months, McDevitt said.

"We learned a lot of lessons last year - we hope everyone would have learned a lot of lessons," McDevitt said. "The new leadership is very willing to do what we need to do to bolster our system."

Vickie Chachere is a Tribune editorial writer.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT