It came out of the blue last week. Powerful legislators want to roll back history and end USFSP’s independent accreditation. What would that mean? No one – not administrators, not faculty, not students – knows for sure.
By Michael Moore Jr. and Jeffrey Waitkevich
When Don Sullivan was an influential state senator from Pinellas County, he grew tired of the shabby way administrators on the Tampa campus of USF treated the small branch campus in St. Petersburg.
So in 2000 he introduced a bill that would have split the campuses and created a new school in St. Petersburg called Suncoast University.
The bill narrowly failed, but Sullivan’s sentiments got the attention of lawmakers and the Tampa campus.
In the years that followed, some of the power in Tampa shifted to St. Petersburg, and in 2006 the long-neglected campus won separate accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools – an important distinction that helped launch a decade of growth in enrollment, fundraising and prestige.
Last week, however, another powerful legislator from Pinellas County helped introduce legislation that might bring things full circle.
The proposal by Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, would abolish the separate accreditation enjoyed by USF St. Petersburg and put all three campuses of the USF system – Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee – under one umbrella controlled by Tampa.
That would position the two smaller campuses to receive more resources when USF Tampa joins the University of Florida and Florida State University as so-called “pre-eminent universities” that are entitled to millions of dollars in bonus funding.
“I think the impact is virtually all positive,” said Sprowls, who is in line to become speaker of the House of Representatives in 2020. “If this were to go through, all of the campuses would have access to a pre-eminent university in their backyard.”
But the curious timing of the proposal – which came without notice, in the second week of the eight-week legislative session – left many faculty, administrators and allies of the St. Petersburg campus frustrated and fuming.
One of them was Sullivan, who left the Senate in 2002.
“It’s amazing to me how often this bad idea keeps coming back to life,” he told the Tampa Bay Times.
“The natural instinct of the Tampa campus to dominate the curriculum and to dominate the control of the budget resulted in Sarasota and Pinellas County getting short shrift,” he said. “I wish we had the University of St. Petersburg.”
Not so fast
Meanwhile, two other important voices had a message for legislators: Not so fast.
The St. Petersburg campus “drifted for years from willful neglect” from the main campus in Tampa, the Tampa Bay Times declared in an editorial on Friday. The proposal “reopens old wounds” and “the botched rollout will make it harder to have a thoughtful discussion about USFSP’s future and to portray a reunified university as something besides a power grad.”
“The proposed move in Tallahassee to strip independence (from USFSP) without appropriate public input is unwise and not in the best interests of the student body,” said U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg.
The proposal, which is buried in the last two pages of a 52-page bill, suddenly surfaced last week in the state House of Representatives.
It was approved 12-1 on Wednesday by the House Post-Secondary Education Subcommittee and moves next to the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee.
In the Senate, the issue has not had an airing, but Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that he is open to taking away the independent accreditation of USF Sarasota-Manatee.
Fundraising at USF Sarasota-Manatee is lagging, Galvano said, and the proposal would “increase efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and access to pre-eminence” funding.
Since he is in line to become Senate president next year, Galvano is – like Sprowls – one of the state’s most powerful lawmakers.
At week’s end, however, faculty, students and administrators in St. Petersburg were still unsure what the bill might portend for their campus.
Accreditation
At issue in the debate is accreditation, which in higher education is considered a crucial measure of an institution.
To obtain accreditation, a school must undergo a rigorous review from an outside agency, which scrutinizes the school’s mission and objectives and the resources, services and programs it offers to maintain that mission.
USF Tampa has been accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools since 1965. When USF St. Petersburg was awarded separate accreditation in 2006, it brought prestige to the waterfront campus and further assurance that it would have more control over hiring, curriculum and student admissions.
Although the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses have separate accreditation, they are not autonomous. They still fall under the control of the 13-member Board of Trustees for the three campuses of the university system and the president the board hired in 2000 – Judy Genshaft.
Genshaft, 70, appoints and supervises the regional chancellors in St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee and oversees broad policies that govern all three campuses.
She is well paid – with a compensation package of more than $900,000, according to published reports – and powerful. As the large Tampa campus has grown in enrollment and national stature, Genshaft has become a major player in the politics and economic development of the Tampa Bay region.
In recent months, Genshaft has appeared intent on strengthening her hold.
In September, she ousted Sophia Wisniewska, the popular regional chancellor in St. Petersburg, for her handling of Hurricane Irma. Genshaft installed an interim leader – Martin Tadlock – who had been on campus for only 14 months, and announced that the search for a permanent replacement would not begin until this summer.
It was the sixth time in her 17 years that Genshaft had changed leaders in St. Petersburg, and Wisniewska’s admirers contend that her abrupt departure blunted the momentum she had helped build in image, admissions and fundraising.
Wisniewska’s ouster was “more like an executive than a resignation,” said Ray Arsenault, a longtime professor of Southern history in St. Petersburg and fierce defender of the campus.
Six months earlier, the regional chancellor in Sarasota-Manatee also departed suddenly. Sandra Stone cited family reasons in her letter of resignation, but the Board of Trustees had voiced concerns about the school’s lagging fundraising.
An interim regional chancellor followed Stone until Genshaft appointed Karen Holbrook, 75, a former president of Ohio State University, to the permanent job in December.
Not a ‘Tampa move’
Although some in St. Petersburg see Genshaft’s hand in the legislative proposal, Tadlock said at a campus forum Friday that it is “not a USF Tampa move.”
Genshaft, he said, “was as surprised as we were” to learn of the proposal, he said, adding, “I know some of you don’t believe that.”
The lawmakers behind the proposal “want a pre-eminent university in St. Petersburg and feel this is the way to do it,” Tadlock said.
In a conference call Friday morning, Genshaft and members of the USF Board of Trustees said that USF St. Petersburg and the USF system as a whole wouldn’t be taking any steps back as a result of the bill.
“We’re not stopping anything; we’re moving forward regardless of the outcome of this proposed legislation, and we are a strong USF brand no matter what,” said Genshaft.
Stephanie Goforth, chair of the USF St. Petersburg campus and Board of Trustees member, echoed those sentiments.
“I will not let USFSP go back to what we were in 2001,” said Goforth. “That is not what this is about.”
“We have a distinct identity; we are moving forward; we have great momentum under the leadership of Martin Tadlock and our leadership here. You have my word, I will do whatever needs to be done to make sure USFSP keeps moving forward,” she added.
Byron Shinn, chair of USF Sarasota-Manatee campus board, welcomed the proposed bill saying, “I’m thrilled that we’ll be at the table, not on the table.”
While taken aback by the timing of the proposal, some faculty and students in St. Petersburg agree that it could redound to the campus’ benefit in more funding and academic opportunities for both students and faculty.
For example, Tadlock said, St. Petersburg could get doctoral programs and be able to offer students more in fields like health care, engineering and performing arts.
Deanna Michael, an associate professor in the College of Education who also serves on the Faculty Senate, says that while it’s too early to know the consequences of the bill, she is hopeful that the process will benefit the campus and cites her strong working relationship with Tampa administrators.
“I’m optimistic there will be a desire on all sides to maintain Tampa’s strong programs and our strong programs,” Michael said.
The role of history
In the early years of its history, the St. Petersburg campus had no stronger ally than Nelson Poynter, the owner of the St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times) from 1938 to 1978.
In the 1950s, the newspaper strongly urged the Legislature to put the new state university in Pinellas County, not Tampa.
When Tampa won out, Poynter and the Times editorial board became champions of the little branch campus in St. Petersburg.
The Times cheered on the city of St. Petersburg as it acquired land for campus expansion, and Poynter himself was a generous financial contributor. He died of a stroke on June 15, 1978, just hours after he proudly took part in the groundbreaking for the first major expansion of the tiny campus.
The campus library is named for him.
In its editorial on Friday, the Times cited the history of the St. Petersburg campus and argued that “history has to be taken into account in any push for transformational change” in the USF system.
A unified USF system “is not the worst idea the Florida Legislature ever had,” the editorial said, and Sprowls “makes a provocative argument that times are different” and St. Petersburg students and faculty would benefit.
But the dramatic improvements St. Petersburg has made should not be put in jeopardy until important questions are answered, the newspaper said.
“What would be the governance structure under a unified USF? How will the St. Petersburg campus be guaranteed its fair share of the performance money, the attention and the promising future Sprowls envisions …?
“What would be the impact on enrollment at USFSP and access for minority students to a local university campus if the admission criteria were the same systemwide?
“How would the campus continue to grow as an economic driver and attractor for St. Petersburg if all of the key decisions were made in Tampa?”
Information from contributor Nancy McCann and the Tampa Bay Times, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, WUSF News and USF websites was used in this report.
Header photo: Jonah Hinebaugh | The Crow’s Nest
