Pictured Above: State Sen. Jeff Brandes (left) says the USF Board of Trustees has enough money to begin expanding St. Petersburg’s academic programs. But trustee Tim Boaz, the president of the USF Faculty Senate, says he doesn’t see “money available for new things.”
By Nancy McCann
Moves to strengthen USF St. Petersburg as a branch campus and begin expanding its academic programs will have to wait.
A bill by Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, to return control of student admissions to the St. Petersburg campus and enlarge and strengthen its Campus Board fizzled in this year’s legislative session.
Meanwhile, the record $101.5 billion state budget that the Legislature sent to the governor includes no specific funding for five proposed “academic clusters” for St. Petersburg that Brandes helped champion.
What happened?
Brandes said he didn’t push his bill because members of the USF Board of Trustees asked for another year to resolve his concerns without legislation.
“Their (the trustees’) tools are much more laser-focused than the Legislature’s,” Brandes told The Crow’s Nest shortly after the Legislature adjourned April 30.
Brandes also said there are funds in the higher education budget passed by the Legislature this year that could be used to begin implementing a five-year plan to create the five new initiatives that would give the St. Petersburg campus more distinctive academic programs and help increase enrollment.
“It’s really up to the Board (of Trustees) to make those strategic investments,” Brandes said. “And I think that’s part of what my (ongoing) conversation with them will be about.”
But Tim Boaz, a trustee who is also president of the USF Faculty Senate, said money for new academic clusters in St. Petersburg is there only if the administration cuts the budget “of some other part” of the university.
“The administration has said we don’t have enough money to do our existing business now,” Boaz told The Crow’s Nest. “I don’t see that we have money available for new things.”
Brandes was one of the Pinellas County legislators who stunned the St. Petersburg campus in 2018 when he helped orchestrate a surprise move to abolish the campus’ independent accreditation and put the three USF campuses under a single accreditation.
However, as Tampa administrators began implementing consolidation — and slighting St. Petersburg — Brandes grew increasingly perturbed.
He repeatedly called out the administration of President Steve Currall for violating the spirit of the state law that protects the unique identity of the St. Petersburg campus. He also suggested that administrators were not being transparent and hinted that the Legislature might retaliate by cutting USF’s budget.
Brandes’ harsh comments in an Oct. 5 online story in The Crow’s Nest even raised concerns at the agency that accredits USF that legislators might be exerting “undue influence” on the consolidation process.
Despite the apparent setbacks in this year’s legislative session, Brandes said he intends to continue monitoring things.
“Now that I’m back from Tallahassee, I plan to be much closer, meet with the board members of both campuses and have a stronger conversation with the president,” Brandes said.
“The Legislature has made a commitment – it’s focused on ensuring that the Board (of Trustees) keeps its commitments to USF St. Pete.
“This year is one where the board can show its steadfast support.”
As a senior senator in a state capital dominated by fellow Republicans, Brandes seemed well-positioned this year to push changes to help St. Petersburg.
As the session unfolded, however, Brandes repeatedly bucked the GOP on key bills.
For example, he opposed the so-called “anti-riot” bill that Gov. Ron DeSantis called his No. 1 priority. Brandes also was the only Republican senator to oppose an election overhaul bill designed to impose new restrictions on voting – a stance that got a mention in The New York Times.
Both bills were approved and quickly signed by DeSantis.
Brandes said his independence didn’t figure in his unsuccessful efforts to help the St. Petersburg campus.
“No, not at all,” Brandes said. “It was more of me deciding not to push that legislation simply because . . . senior members of the Board (of Trustees) had asked me for another year to resolve these issues.
“A couple of people actually called me . . . and said, ‘Give us time to work through this, please. Don’t push this, this year, you’ll have next year if you need to.’”
Under Brandes’ bill, St. Petersburg would have gotten “a separate admissions office,” just as it once had for years.
In July 2018, admission requirements were made uniform across USF’s three campuses, and in March 2019 control of the entire admissions process passed to Glen Besterfield, the Tampa-based dean of admissions.
Brandes’ bill also would have increased the St. Petersburg Campus Board – Pinellas County residents who help oversee the campus – from seven members to nine.
The campus board, which is now an advisory body, would have been empowered to “give input and final approval to any annual recruitment, enrollment, or academic plans” affecting the campus and “recommend regional chancellor finalists” for the campus to USF’s president.
Regional Chancellor Martin Tadlock has called Brandes a driving force behind the proposal to create the five academic clusters over the next five years.
When Brandes met with university administrators last October, Tadlock said, the St. Petersburg senator raised longstanding concerns about what USF is doing to build the campus’ vision and help it meet the community’s needs.
“We were given two weeks” to address “the identity of this campus,” Tadlock said at a campus forum in November, and come up with “three to five” initiatives that would help improve enrollment and provide “an interdisciplinary, dramatic direction” for St. Petersburg.
The result was what Tadlock called “a draft document for discussion purposes” that lays out proposals to expand offerings in environmental and oceanographic sciences, STEM education, the arts, business and health sciences.
As Brandes urged, the administration has had five community focus groups on the proposed clusters to help set priorities, with a sixth tentatively scheduled for next month. But without money the programs can’t go far.
Although Brandes’ efforts fell short in the Legislature, he’s had a big impact on consolidation.
When it became apparent that the USF administration intended to short-change the university’s two smaller campuses, the Legislature amended the statutes to ensure that St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee would be full branch campuses – not satellite instructional sites – when consolidation took effect in 2020.
Brandes and House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor, also forced the administration to address St. Petersburg’s enrollment, which plummeted after the campus’ student admission requirements were adjusted to match Tampa’s.
Brandes said changes were coming to the 13-member Board of Trustees, which – as predicted – has gotten three new members in recent months. One of the new trustees, Melissa Seixas, the president of Duke Energy Florida, became chair of the St. Petersburg Campus Board.
Brandes also criticized the surprise announcement last October that USF would dismantle its College of Education – a decision that the administration later walked back.
The senator is already mulling his next move. He said he’s “pushing for a discussion” to enhance the nursing program in St. Petersburg when the Florida Board of Governors comes to the St. Petersburg campus for its June 22-23 meeting
