Pictured Above: USF President Currall (left) welcomed the news, but St. Petersburg faculty leader Ray Arsenault had a less optimistic assessment.
Left Image Courtesy of USF
Right Image Courtesy of Ray Arsenault
By Nancy McCann
The regional agency that accredits higher education institutions in the South has given its blessing today to a plan to consolidate the three campuses of USF into one.
The Executive Council of the Board of Trustees of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges approved the consolidation of the University of South Florida (Tampa) with the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses.
The move to join the three campuses under a single accreditation, which has already brought sweeping – and sometimes controversial – changes to St. Petersburg, was given a projected implementation of July 2020 by the SACSCOC board.
USF President Steve Currall welcomed the news from SACSCOC.
“The University of South Florida achieved a historic milestone today,” he said in a prepared statement.
“Just as there will be expanded access and opportunities for students, the same will be true for our faculty, who, for example, will be able to take advantage of greater opportunities for interdisciplinary research.” (See Currall’s full statement below.)
But history professor Ray Arsenault, who as president of the USF St. Petersburg’s Faculty Senate has repeatedly challenged the premise and particulars of consolidation, offered a decidedly less rosy assessment.
“I suspect that nearly everyone is relieved that the long phase one of the consolidation process is finally over,” said Arsenault, who has taught in St. Petersburg since 1980.
“There has been so much anxiety and confusion during the past two years but now at long last there is a certain amount of clarity which will allow us to face the future of the university with our eyes open.
“No one at this point can be sure that consolidation will be an unqualified success, or even that it will raise the quality of education and intellectual life at USF to new levels,” Arsenault said. “But if the university as a whole can embrace a spirit of community and collaboration that fosters equity and mutual respect across the three campuses, we will have accomplished a great deal.”
SACSCOC’s action Friday capped a process that was set in motion by the Florida Legislature more than two years ago.
Language that was initially buried in a 52-page bill — and enacted into law in March 2018 — ended the independent accreditations of St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee and rolled the three USF system campuses into a single accredited university, starting July 1, 2020.
The listed sponsor of the bill was Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, but the principal architect of the consolidation move was Rep. Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor. Sprowls is chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee and speaker-designate of the House in 2021-2022.
Sprowls has repeatedly said his principal reason for consolidating the three campuses is simple: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
USF Tampa was poised to become Florida’s third preeminent state research university in 2018, joining Florida State University and the University of Florida.
Preeminence brings more annual funding (which can vary year to year) to universities that meet at least 11 of 12 metrics designed to indicate high academic and research performance. Sprowls said he wanted some of that money to go to the two smaller campuses.
Sprowls said recently that, under consolidation, all campuses of the USF system “will have access to more and better programs, and the rise of USF and her students will be a victory for the whole Tampa Bay Region.”
But the sudden news of losing the standing and prestige of a separate university caught the St. Petersburg community off guard and landed like a bombshell on the campus.
St. Petersburg, which began as a tiny satellite of Tampa in 1965, had fought hard for separate accreditation from USF Tampa – achieved in 2006 – and the prospect of consolidation set in motion months of angst, anxiety and sometimes bitter debate.
Then-USF system President Judy Genshaft acknowledged that she knew about the legislators’ plan for consolidation about three months before it became a shock wave in St. Petersburg. Through a spokeswoman, she said she did not immediately share what she learned because it was one of “several options” being considered.
Early fears in St. Petersburg were outlined by then-interim Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock in a letter that state Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, shared with the Tampa Bay Times in February 2018.
Among the concerns relayed by Tadlock: Not getting enough research support for preeminence goals; becoming “less accessible” to students in Pinellas County; losing St. Petersburg’s unique campus identity; losing “local control” of administrative, budget and curriculum decisions; and non-equitable distribution of funds.
In fact, the controversial consolidation has already had a dramatic impact on the St. Petersburg campus.
First-time-in-college (FTIC) enrollment in the fall plummeted in 2019 after the campus rapidly raised its admissions requirements to be aligned with Tampa’s. The freshman enrollment numbers are expected to go up in the 2020 fall semester.
The campus’ three colleges – education, arts and sciences and business – are being folded into colleges based in Tampa.
In order to align tuition and fees on all three campuses, there’s an increase of $11.74 per credit hour in “differential tuition” for undergraduates first enrolled this summer or later— explained on the USF website as a “supplemental fee . . . to support undergraduate educational programs and services.”
The total of other fees charged per credit hour for in-state St. Petersburg undergraduates, including activities and services, transportation access, health and athletic fees, has gone up by $4.25. Flat fees charged per semester for activities and services and athletics have increased by $12.
And much of student government will now be Tampa-based and dominated by Tampa students.
One of the most controversial issues that arose focused on the definition of a branch campus, which touched on all the concerns mentioned by Tadlock in his letter.
According to SACSCOC, a branch campus has its own faculty and administrative or supervisory organization and its own budgetary and hiring authority.
A task force created by legislators to help plan for consolidation recommended in February 2019 that St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee be designated branch campuses, as strictly defined by the regional accrediting standards.
But consolidation planning documents prepared by the Genshaft administration continued to be Tampa-centric and seemed to ignore the recommendation of the task force. Tampa’s vision for St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee more closely matched less prestigious instructional sites that would be controlled from Tampa.
In the spring of 2019, following opposition from the St. Petersburg community and with Sprowls again as the driving force, the Legislature amended state law to ensure that the two smaller campuses would become full branch campuses under the definition of the regional accrediting agency.
After replacing Genshaft in July 2019, Currall assured the editorial board of the Tampa Bay Times the following month that fears that the St. Petersburg campus would lose its autonomy and identity were “not well-founded.”
In the months that followed, however, he zigzagged back and forth on the subject of branch campuses, drawing criticism from the Times and key legislators.
A preliminary blueprint he unveiled in September 2019 is “awfully tilted toward the main campus in Tampa,” the Times editorial board said, and “neuters the regional chancellors” in St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, “leaving them with no power over academics and focused on fundraising, community outreach and nonacademic staff.”
Currall backed off that plan a month later. But a new plan he unveiled in January 2020 proposed an administrative structure for the consolidated university that had no leadership positions on the St. Petersburg campus reporting to Tadlock.
Organizational charts presented Jan. 9 caught some St. Petersburg campus leaders by surprise. Currall’s plan resembled the model that was championed by his predecessor — a consolidation structure that they thought had been abandoned.
Arsenault, the campus’ most outspoken advocate on consolidation issues and president of St. Petersburg’s Faculty Senate, said that the new charts didn’t reflect “some of the ongoing negotiations and agreements that we thought had been made and the legislation that guarantees us branch campus status.”
Currall did another about-face, and by early February he released revised organizational charts and other details that appeared to meet state law requiring St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee to operate as full branch campuses in the consolidated university.
The final consolidation plan submitted to SACSCOC in March 2020 won praise on the St. Petersburg campus. One of the most applauded details is an organizational chart showing five regional vice chancellors reporting directly to Tadlock.
Tadlock said today that “the SACSCOC Board’s approval of USF’s consolidation change request is an acknowledgment of all the hard work done by faculty, staff and student government leaders over the past two years.
“We now look forward to the visiting team’s review and assessment of the plan’s implementation during the coming academic year.”
Although Sprowls, the principal architect of consolidation, maintains that preeminence will bring more prestige and funding to St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, his colleagues in Tallahassee apparently did not get the message.
For the second year in a row, the Legislature allocated no new preeminence funds to the state’s three preeminent research universities.
But all three schools continue to benefit from prior years’ awards that became part of their annual, recurring budgets. USF St. Petersburg also got $6.5 million in “operational support” from the Legislature last year. The money was split between the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 budgets, with $3.5 million allotted last year and $3 million for 2020-2021 awaiting final approval from Gov. Ron DeSantis.
‘Thank you for all that you do to make USF a world-class university.’
This is Currall’s full statement:
Dear USF Community,
The University of South Florida achieved a historic milestone today as the Executive Council of our accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), approved our plan to consolidate our three campuses.
Today’s action authorizes a single accreditation for the Tampa campus and our branch campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee and allows us to comply with the state law passed in 2018 and amended in 2019 that mandates consolidation as of July 1, 2020.
Considering the complexities of consolidating three separately accredited institutions, today’s approval represents a remarkable accomplishment. I am grateful for the many valuable contributions and input from faculty, staff and students representing each campus, the USF Board of Trustees, the Florida Board of Governors, members of the state legislature and other stakeholders from across the Tampa Bay region and the State of Florida.
With consolidation, USF students will have access to a broader array of rigorous and relevant accredited degree programs at the baccalaureate, master’s, doctoral research and professional levels on all three campuses. The benefits of preeminence will extend to all of our campuses, and consolidation will mean that every USF student will earn their degree from a Preeminent Research University.
Just as there will be expanded access and opportunities for students, the same will be true for our faculty, who, for example, will be able to take advantage of greater opportunities for interdisciplinary research.
We have an extraordinary opportunity, as One USF, to strengthen our position as one of the nation’s premier research universities and a leader in student success by developing new and innovative ways to serve all members of the university community and the broader Tampa Bay region as we strive to become a top-25 public research university and position ourselves for eligibility for membership in the Association of American Universities.
Our next step in the consolidation process is to extensively document that the consolidated USF complies with SACSCOC’s Principles of Accreditation and to prepare for a site visit by a SACSCOC committee later this year or early next year. A standard requirement for accreditation, the visit will include all three campuses, the Morsani College of Medicine in downtown Tampa and possibly other off-campus instructional sites. We will share more details in the weeks and months to come.
Thank you for all that you do to make USF a world-class university.
Sincerely
Steven C. Currall
President and Professor
Editor’s Note
This article was edited on June 13, 2020, to provide comment from Professor Ray Arsenault. The featured image and caption were changed to reflect these added comments. The article was also edited to clarify that $3 million of the “operational support” funds that were approved by the Legislature last year are awaiting final approval from Gov. Ron DeSantis.
I am appalled at the lack of recognition of the value os 3 distinct accredited campuses. Currall’s lack of integrity is depressing.