Pictured Above: Historian Ray Arsenault, who joined the faculty in 1980, is the author or editor of nine books.
Courtesy of Ray Arsenault
By Nancy McCann
Professor Ray Arsenault, a preeminent Southern historian and outspoken champion of the St. Petersburg campus, will retire at the end of the fall semester.
Arsenault, 72, announced in an email to campus leaders on Aug. 27 that he will depart the university he joined in 1980 and “embrace retirement with the same spirit that animated my long career” at USF.
“Many of my friends that I went to graduate school with – most of them – have already retired,” he told The Crow’s Nest. “A number of my students have retired, so maybe I’m doing something wrong” in teaching for 48 years.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced faculty to switch to online teaching, which Arsenault said is not “a good fit” for somebody who thrives on interactive seminars. He also acknowledged that his Type 2 diabetes is a “difficult thing to keep under control.”
But his main motivation, he said, was a desire to “try some new things” and spend more time with his wife, Kathy, the former dean of the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library on campus, their two adult daughters and two grandchildren.
“It’s really just time,” he said.
Arsenault, who holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a doctorate from Brandeis University, came to St. Petersburg in 1980 from the University of Minnesota.
The campus, founded 15 years earlier as a tiny satellite to Tampa, was just beginning to expand beyond its original footprint on 11 acres that jutted out into Bayboro Harbor (site of today’s College of Marine Science).
As the campus grew over the years, so did Arsenault’s stature as a historian.
He is the author or editor of nine books, including a trilogy on key figures in the civil rights movement: the singer Marian Anderson, the Freedom Riders and Arthur Ashe, the tennis star-turned-activist and public intellectual. He is now at work on a biography of civil rights giant, John Lewis.
Arsenault was also active in community affairs, including a stint as Florida president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
In recent years, as president of the now-defunct USF St. Petersburg Faculty Senate, he became known as the conscience of the campus in turbulent times.
When the popular regional chancellor, Sophia Wisniewska, was ousted in 2017 by then-USF President Judy Genshaft, who said Wisniewska bungled preparations for Hurricane Irma, Arsenault called the move a “gross overreaction … more like an execution than a resignation.”
When Pinellas County legislators moved secretly and swiftly in early 2018 to abolish the St. Petersburg campus’ cherished independent accreditation, Arsenault blistered them for meddling in academic governance without consulting senior faculty and community leaders.
And as Tampa-based administrators rushed through the consolidation planning process, Arsenault repeatedly called them out for trampling on traditions that made the St. Petersburg campus distinctive.
The Tampa administration’s fixation on retaining its designation as a preeminent research institution “almost reminds me of Trump’s wall,” Arsenault said in January 2019. “The preeminence thing has become the wall that seems to block out everything else – what’s happening in the classroom, the relationships with the community.”
Consolidation took effect July 1. Asked if he will continue to weigh in, Arsenault turned reflective.
“Things are a bit uncertain at the university,” Arsenault told The Crow’s Nest. “I don’t think anybody knows exactly how consolidation is going to work out and what the St. Petersburg campus is going to be like in a year or two. I’m hopeful, but things are going to be different.”
He said he will join a group of retired faculty and administrators that supports the campus. “I’m sure I’ll be involved with them and make my views known.
“But I think it’s really up to the people who are actively involved in teaching on the campus, particularly full-time faculty,” he said. “It’s really not for me to dictate or try to influence their decisions.”
Arsenault said he intends to stay active in the ACLU and other community groups and, once the pandemic ends, resume painting lessons at the Morean Arts Center and team trivia competition at Ferg’s Sports Bar.
Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock said the retirement of a man he called an intellectual and professional leader is “a tremendous loss” for the campus.
But Arsenault “will still be here in St. Petersburg and will have an office on our campus next year,” Tadlock said. “He will still be contributing to the community and his profession. I’m sure of it.”
Hi, Ray,
Glad to hear you will now have time to pursue other pleasures in your Golden Years.
It was a pleasure knowing you and Kathy, both personally and in our work together with the ACLU.
I must also thank you for suggesting that Sudsy would make a good foster-mommy for my pussycat, Pretty Boy. He is still with her (knows a good deal when he sees one – also has seniority now 😉 – she even sends me photos of him now and again.
Cuidate and enjoy the rest of your ride 😉
Nigel
Congratulations Ray, I was just about tying give you all of my books on FL. Maybe Haslem’s now. It’s been a long time since I was on campus. I graduated in 1987. I truly enjoyed your class about St Petersburg, my home town. Time is flying get that bucket list out and start living the retired life. Sincerely Robin HOLLINS.