Pictured Above: “There’s never been any effort to change the name of any of our campuses,” Provost Ralph Wilcox says.
Courtesy of USF
By Nancy McCann
First, Provost Ralph Wilcox told USF trustees that, to meet accreditation guidelines, USF St. Petersburg should now be called “USF St. Petersburg campus” – with a lowercase “c.”
Then St. Petersburg’s marketing and communications director sent an email informing faculty and staff that “we are adopting the word ‘campus’ as part of our name and logo” and said there would be an inventory to determine what campus signs needed to be changed.
And then some graduates started noticing that – without their knowledge or permission – the words “USF St. Petersburg” on their Facebook pages, showing where they earned their degrees, had been changed to “USF St. Petersburg campus.”
But wait. Now Wilcox says “there has never been any contemplation of changing the name.”
“In spite of some reporting or implication to the contrary, there’s never been any effort to change the name of any of our campuses or the institution,” he said.
Some might say – How’s that again?
The puzzling assertion came in an interview with The Crow’s Nest on Oct. 12 in which the provost seemed to want to have it both ways.
“The recommendation (from the regional accrediting agency) has been that . . . wherever we use the term USF St Petersburg to add the lowercase ‘campus’ to acknowledge that it is indeed a branch campus of the University of South Florida,” Wilcox said. “The same for USF Sarasota-Manatee, and in cases where we refer to USF Tampa, we also will include the suffix ‘campus,’ lowercase.”
The Crow’s Nest asked, “If you drive by a sign and it says ‘USF St Petersburg campus,’ isn’t that a name change? Aren’t signs supposed to portray a name?”
“I would say not,” Wilcox said. “We recognize that there are statutorily identified names. We are simply acknowledging the existence of three campuses as members of one university.”
In the interview, Wilcox also:
** Said he had not discussed the implementation of consolidation with the powerful legislators who mandated it in 2018 and now are clearly perturbed about how university leaders are handling it.
** Retreated – somewhat – from earlier remarks that the consolidated university needs a single budget – not a budget for each campus, as mandated by law.
“The evidence, I think, clearly acknowledges the existence of four separate appropriations (three campuses plus USF Health) flowing to the University of South Florida,” Wilcox said. “But by necessity, as (Regional Chancellor Martin) Tadlock recognizes, the actions taken within his budget could have a positive or, indeed, negative impact on university-wide operations . . . . Ongoing consultation with college deans whose colleges cross campus boundaries or borders will be essential.”
** Defended the glowing way he described USF’s fall enrollment statistics to the Board of Trustees on Sept. 8 – without mentioning that St. Petersburg’s numbers for new freshmen have plunged.
“I don’t know that we ever shared campus-by-campus enrollment, which one ordinarily wouldn’t expect from a consolidated university,” Wilcox said. “But if they didn’t know earlier, they certainly know now.”
The Crow’s Nest has reported the plummeting numbers for the last two years.
When Wilcox first broached the matter of campus names at trustee committee meetings on Aug. 25, he acknowledged it was a sensitive issue.
The name USF St. Petersburg is a point of pride for many graduates and community leaders, and in 2019 the Legislature enshrined the name in Chapter 1004 of the Florida Statutes.
The law says that the downtown waterfront campus “shall be known as the ‘University of South Florida St. Petersburg.’ ”
The difference between the law and what Wilcox said is needed under single accreditation led to an Aug. 31 email from Carrie O’Brion, St. Petersburg’s director of marketing and communications, giving faculty and staff detailed instructions on the name.
“Please use the word ‘campus’ with a lowercase ‘c’ when referring to our geographic location. For example, ‘I am a professor on USF’s St. Petersburg campus’ or ‘The event will be held by the waterfront on the USF St. Petersburg campus,’” O’Brion wrote.
She also gave instructions for changing email signature blocks, and provided a new logo to use for letterhead, fliers and PowerPoint presentations.
Wilcox said the same goes for faculty and staff on the Tampa campus if they have “customarily included a geographical reference,” and the same is true “if there are signs that historically have read ‘USF Tampa.’ ”
In the Pinellas County political community, where some leaders were already bristling at the way consolidation of the three campuses is unfolding, the name change is particularly galling.
It “drives me crazy,” Ed Montanari, chair of the St. Petersburg City Council, told The Crow’s Nest earlier this month. “Our name is everything to us. We have taken so much pride and we’ve had so much effort into branding our city and putting St. Petersburg on the map and having the University of South Florida St. Petersburg right here in our downtown. It’s part of our DNA.”
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman also criticized the change.
In a letter to Jeff Brandes, a state senator from St. Petersburg who helped lead the move in 2018 to end St. Petersburg’s independence, the mayor said that, “by law, (the campus) is required to be called USF St. Petersburg and not the ‘St. Petersburg Campus’ (as it currently appears on their website).”
When Wilcox spoke to the trustees in August, he said the accrediting agency is concerned that using the names “USF St. Petersburg and USF Sarasota-Manatee” suggests that “we are still separate institutions” and that the trustees and Tampa “somehow do not have sufficient organizational control over all campuses.”
Tadlock, who joined the interview with Wilcox, said that the needs for single accreditation and the legislative mandate to preserve the campuses’ longstanding names are “difficult to balance.”
“I think it meets the intent of the legislation by still having USF St. Petersburg . . . as the name with ‘campus’ as the specified location,” Tadlock said.
Wilcox told The Crow’s Nest he doesn’t see it as a contradiction to add the word “campus” to the names.
“I don’t believe there is any friction whatsoever between recognizing, as stated in law, the unique identity and the geographical location of the campus and the fact that between June 30 of 2020 and July 1 of 2020, consistent with state law, the status of the St Petersburg campus changed from a freestanding, separately accredited institution to a member campus of a consolidated university.
“As ever, we’ve consistently followed a path in line with Florida Statutes as we’ve moved toward consolidation.”
Many in St. Petersburg would disagree with that.
In September 2019 and again in January 2020, USF President Steve Currall released proposed organization plans that would have undercut the authority of the regional chancellors of the smaller campuses.
The plans appeared to violate statutory language that specifies USF St. Petersburg and USF Sarasota-Manatee are full branch campuses, as defined by the regional accrediting agency, with their own budgetary and hiring authority.
Both times Currall was forced to walk them back.
‘Not feeling the love’
The Oct. 12 interview included this exchange between The Crow’s Nest and Provost Ralph Wilcox:
The Crow’s Nest: Why do you think some people, not only at the (St. Petersburg) campus but in the community, just aren’t feeling the love from President (Steve) Currall and you toward the (St. Petersburg) campus? What do you think is causing that and do you think you can do some things to make people feel more comfortable with the Tampa attitude toward St Petersburg?
Wilcox: I think once (St. Petersburg) students up their game, if you will, and start to perform across the university at the same level, that they are retained from year to year, that they graduate, that the experience they’re receiving inside and outside the classroom (which is a little difficult in these extraordinary times) . . . but at a point when they’re realizing equitable experiences in and out of the classroom. When faculty are feeling the same level of support.
After spending MILLIONS OF DOLLARS months ago to redesign the “Bull” only to dump it soon after, USF leadership now talks of changing signage around its Campuses. What is the cost of this work ?
We have lower enrollment, staff being let go. colleges being phased out. Yet money for sign changes can be found.
So SACSCOC is the culprit? Funny how so many other institutions they accredit have branch campuses that don’t use lowercase “campus.” Seems rather inconsistent… maybe a release of that recommendation or a public records request would clear things up? Otherwise one might think Dr. Wilcox wasn’t being completely honest and we’d hate for anyone to have that impression.