Tag: DeSantis

  • DeSantis wants to give USF’s Sarasota campus to New College of Florida

    DeSantis wants to give USF’s Sarasota campus to New College of Florida

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    Dive Brief:

    • The New College of Florida could take control of the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus under a new proposal from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 
    • Under DeSantis’ 2026-27 state budget,  New College would assume control of USF Sarasota-Manatee’s 32-acre property and related liabilities by July. In exchange, the college would pay USF roughly $166,600 per month for debt tied to the property. 
    • Current USF Sarasota-Manatee students would have a “reasonable opportunity” to finish their degrees at the campus before New College could fully take over the property, according to the proposal. If the proposal takes effect, USF could not enroll new students at its Sarasota-Manatee campus going forward.

    Dive Insight:

    With DeSantis’ proposal, the liberal arts-focused New College, also based in Sarasota, would undertake a major expansion. However, the governor’s budget proposal essentially represents a legislative wish list, making the ultimate outcome still uncertain. 

    “This is a policy matter that is going to be discussed, debated and worked through over the coming months of the Legislative Session,” Will Weatherford, chair of USF’s governing board, said at a meeting on Thursday, according to local media. “We don’t control the outcome of that discussion.”

    The proposal would not transfer USF’s Sarasota-Manatee students or employees to New College.  

    USF would retain its intellectual and other intangible property, as well as records and equipment, and have priority over the space while its current students finish their degrees. 

    However, the budget provision states that the two institutions could forge a “mutual agreement to share or use space in any of the transferred properties or facilities when it is in the best interest of both institutions or their students.”

    News of such a plan for New College to take over the campus broke earlier this year. 

    Emails unearthed in March by WUSF — a public news outlet owned by USF — included a draft press release penned by New College announcing it would integrate the Sarasota-Manatee campus. The draft release trumpeted millions of dollars in potential savings and the elimination of redundancies between the two institutions. 

    The draft said the “strategic partnership between the next door colleges aims to create a unified, world-class institution that maximizes resources, eliminates redundancies, and elevates opportunities for students, faculty, and the region.”

    “New College’s rapid growth will immediately benefit from the additional physical space provided by the USF-SM campus,” the draft release also stated. “The integration also addresses longstanding inefficiencies, consolidating administrative functions and aligning academic offerings.”

    In New College’s envisioning, according to the draft, the integration would create “streamlined transfer pathways” for USF Sarasota-Manatee students to the university’s Tampa flagship or St. Petersburg campuses, or New College. 

    Prior to those discussions of a transfer, New College in 2024 took over a 9-acre waterfront property, originally set aside for USF Sarasota-Manatee, which the college said would grow its student population. 

    New College has become a lynchpin in DeSantis’ efforts to remake higher education in Florida. In 2023, the governor revamped the college’s board and named his longtime ally Richard Corcoran — former Republican state House speaker and Florida education commissioner — as its president. 

    In the intervening two years, Corcoran and the board have killed the institution’s once-robust diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and dismantled its gender studies department, among other changes favored by conservatives. 

    In October, New College became the first to publicly volunteer for President Donald Trump’s higher education compact, which offers colleges priority in research funding in exchange for adopting a slate of policies put forward by the Trump administration. 

    The legal foundations of the compact have been widely questioned, and most of the nine research universities directly offered the deal rejected it over concerns about free speech, institutional independence and maintaining meritocracy in funding. New College, on the other hand, said it would “happily be the first” to embrace the compact. 

    “We have no affirmative action or DEI, and we have been building a campus where open dialogue and the marketplace of ideas are at the forefront of everything we do,” Corcoran said at the time. 

    Meanwhile, USF Sarasota-Manatee has been growing its physical footprint. The campus, long a commuter-only institution, last year opened a new 100,000-square-foot combined residence hall and student center that it billed as the campus’s first student housing and major expansion since opening in 2006. 

    New College is renting space in USF Sarasota-Manatee’s new facility to house some of its students. That expense, combined with renting nearby hotel rooms for the same purpose, is costing the college millions of dollars each year, according to WUSF.

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  • Pasco-Hernando Taps DeSantis Ally as Interim President

    Pasco-Hernando Taps DeSantis Ally as Interim President

    Weeks after Pasco-Hernando State College president Jesse Pisors resigned abruptly, the board named Florida Department of Juvenile Justice secretary Eric Hall interim president Tuesday.

    Republican governor Ron DeSantis appointed Hall to the department in late 2021. Prior to that role, Hall served as senior chancellor of the Florida Department of Education from early 2019 to late 2021. Before that appointment, his educational experience was largely in the K-12 space.

    Hall was a finalist in the 2023 PHSC presidential search that ended with Pisors in the top job. 

    Pisors resigned after less than 18 months as president. His departure followed the release of a critical report by Florida’s version of the Department of Government Efficiency, which indicated the college was among the worst in the state in terms of student growth and retention. Board members alleged that they had not been made aware of those numbers, despite requests.

    However, The Tampa Bay Times reported that there has been skepticism around the validity of the report, which some critics argued was a flawed analysis of PHSC’s student outcomes.

    The newspaper also noted that DeSantis appointed Hall to a government efficiency task force in late 2023, an effort that was ultimately a forebear of the state’s DOGE apparatus.

    Hall is one of multiple DeSantis allies hired to lead a public institution in Florida this year. Others include Marva Johnson, a lobbyist, hired to lead Florida A&M University last week, and former Florida lieutenant governor Jeanette Nuñez at Florida International University, as well as former state lawmaker Adam Hasner at Florida Atlantic University, both of whom were hired in February. (Nuñez was hired as an interim but has since been named sole finalist for the job.)

    Prior political hires include Ben Sasse, a former Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska, who briefly led the University of Florida before stepping down amid a spending scandal, and former state lawmaker Richard Corcoran at New College of Florida. Another former GOP lawmaker, Ray Rodrigues, was hired as chancellor of the State University System of Florida in 2022.

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  • Florida A&M Hires DeSantis Ally as President

    Florida A&M Hires DeSantis Ally as President

    Florida A&M’s Board of Trustees voted 8 to 4 Friday to hire Marva Johnson as president.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Jemal Countess/Getty Images for NOBCO | JHVEPhoto/iStock/Getty Images

    Following a contentious selection process, Florida A&M University hired a new president with no experience working in higher education but long-standing ties to Republican governor Ron DeSantis.

    Marva Johnson, a lobbyist for Charter Communications, faced sharp opposition from students and alumni, who dubbed her “MAGA Marva.” But despite questions about her lack of experience, Florida A&M’s board voted 8 to 4 in a Friday meeting to make her the next president.

    Johnson was also criticized by community members and board chair Kristin Harper for her salary demands, which included base pay of $750,000 plus performance bonuses. (Two other candidates requested compensation in the $500,000 range, while one other was negotiable.)

    Harper was one of the four trustees who voted against hiring Johnson.

    “In an age of merit-based hiring decisions, how can one justify settling for a candidate who does not meet all of the position criteria? Or turning a blind eye to exceptionally qualified candidates?” Harper asked.

    She added that FAMU community members “have been very clear” with their feedback.

    But other trustees emphasized Johnson’s experience in the political world. Jamal Brown, the Faculty Senate president, who sits on the board, argued that FAMU needed a president who has “access and political connections” to ensure the university’s financial success. In voting for Johnson, he argued that “this moment calls for someone who understands the systems that fund and govern us, because right now our survival depends on how we navigate those systems.”

    While Johnson has never worked in higher education in any capacity, she spent eight years on the Florida State Board of Education, including time as chair. During the hiring process, critics highlighted her lack of experience, as did some trustees who voted against her.

    Johnson beat out Donald Palm, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Florida A&M, who received four votes. Other candidates included Rondall Allen, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and Gerald Hector, senior vice president for administration and finance at the University of Central Florida.

    Palm, the internal candidate, was overwhelmingly endorsed by FAMU’s alumni association.

    At a tense meet-and-greet with Johnson on Wednesday, the candidate assured the university community she was “not a Trojan horse” and promised she “would fight and win for FAMU.”

    However, critics have argued she failed to articulate a clear vision for the university.

    Additional drama accompanied the hire when the board cut Harper out of contract negotiations. While board chairs have traditionally negotiated the contract with incoming presidents at Florida A&M, trustees voted to delegate that responsibility to another member at Friday’s meeting.

    “I take personal offense at what is happening,” Harper said during that discussion.

    Another controversy arose earlier in the search amid speculation that Johnson was added to a list of three finalists at the last minute. Last month trustee Ernie Ellison called to restart the search, arguing, “There are too many clouds hanging over this process.” He stepped down earlier this month and was quickly replaced by a new DeSantis appointee, who then voted to hire Johnson.

    Johnson steps into the FAMU job, which is currently held by an interim, after Larry Robinson, who led the university from 2017 to 2024, resigned amid controversy over a fraudulent gift.

    Last spring Florida A&M announced at commencement that the university had received a $237 million donation from Greg Gerami, a relatively unknown businessman with no connection to the institution. Florida A&M appeared to ignore warning signs that Gerami had also pledged $95 million to Coastal Carolina University in 2020, despite having no ties to CCU other than previously dating an employee. Gerami walked that donation back due to what he viewed as disrespect by officials at Coastal Carolina. Gerami’s FAMU donation was later invalidated.

    Despite the opposition to her candidacy, Johnson fits the profile favored in recent years by the governing boards at Florida’s public institutions, which have emphasized nontraditional applicants. Johnson is one of multiple presidential hires with ties to DeSantis or the GOP since 2022, when the State Legislature passed a bill allowing universities to shield applicant identities until the end of the hiring process, breaking with a long-standing tradition of making those names public. State lawmakers recently proposed injecting more transparency into searches, but that effort failed.

    Other political hires include Ben Sasse, a former Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska, who had a short-lived presidency at the University of Florida; former Florida lieutenant governor Jeanette Nuñez at Florida International University; and former state lawmakers Adam Hasner at Florida Atlantic University and Richard Corcoran at New College of Florida, among several others. Former GOP lawmaker Ray Rodrigues was also hired to lead the State University System of Florida in 2022.

    The University of Florida is currently in the process of replacing Sasse with an interim appointed to the job after his abrupt departure. Sole finalist Santa Ono, a traditional academic who left the University of Michigan to take the Florida job, marks a reversal of course compared to recent hires. However, Ono’s candidacy has sparked criticism from some conservative power players.

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  • Govs. DeSantis, Hochul threaten academic freedom with political interference

    Govs. DeSantis, Hochul threaten academic freedom with political interference

    It’s no secret that politicians are getting more involved in higher education. And while some level of involvement with how colleges and universities operate is appropriate given the amount of taxpayer money spent on campuses, nobody should be surprised to learn that greater political involvement can pose academic freedom risks.

    Last Monday, for example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the creation of Florida’s own Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), named after the Trump Administration’s Elon Musk-led initiative to cut federal spending. The Florida task force is to conduct “a deep dive into all facets of college and university operations and spending and make recommendations to the Board of Governors and State Board of Education to eliminate any wasteful spending.”

    There are viewpoint-based decisions that governors and legislatures have to make about colleges as part of the political and appropriations process. But the more granular those decisions, the more they threaten to substitute academic judgment with political judgment.

    During his live announcement, DeSantis expanded on what he called “the DOGE-ing of our state university system,” saying it would include “examining courses, programming, and staff” with an aim towards helping students gain “meaningful employment.” But the governor also, troublingly, made clear that he’s continuing to take aim at a particular set of viewpoints:

    [S]ome of the ideological studies stuff, we just want to prune that and get that out, and we want to make sure that these universities are really serving the classical mission of what a university should be. And that’s not to impose ideology.

    Politicians have long complained about taxpayer money spent on what they see as frivolous academic pursuits — the proverbial degree in “underwater basket weaving” — but what DeSantis posits goes further. This task force won’t simply be focused on (say) eliminating majors that offer no real job prospects. Rather, it will seek out courses involving “ideological studies stuff,” presumably by reviewing course descriptions or syllabi, that in the task force’s view is not worth teaching. 

    That’s not just an invitation to viewpoint discrimination — it’s an explicit mandate.

    It’s not hard to see how this could threaten academic freedom by pressuring faculty members to substitute state-level politics for their academic judgment. 

    For example, let’s say the University of Florida’s Chinese Studies department decides that, to understand contemporary China, students need to take a class on Marxist-Leninist political thought. It’s easy to see how this could be relevant given that China is a Communist country. It’s also easy to see how an outside agency like Florida DOGE might view this as an effort to propagandize students into Marxism.

    What’s the likely result?

    • Most obviously, the department might decide to avoid conflict with the government by eliminating the class altogether despite believing it was needed, therefore impoverishing students’ education.
    • Even if it did decide to require the class, the department is likely to pressure its instructor not to include things that look pro-Marxist, regardless of whether the professor thinks it would be the best material for the course. That poorly serves students and limits a professor’s ability to engage in the intellectual pursuit of teaching, to boot.
    • Finally, even if the department were to offer the class without compromising on content, its instructor will most certainly feel “in the crosshairs,” restricted from following his or her academic conscience lest he or she get the class eliminated through an incautious word.

    Colleges should not be immune from investigations into waste and abuse. And there are viewpoint-based decisions that governors and legislatures have to make about colleges as part of the political and appropriations process. But the more granular those decisions, the more they threaten to substitute academic judgment with political judgment. It remains to be seen whether this is how Florida DOGE will actually operate, but the governor’s remarks create plenty of cause for concern.

    Lest there be any doubt that governors of any party are capable of interfering in isolated academic decisions if given the opportunity, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (no friend of DeSantis) last Tuesday ordered the immediate removal of a CUNY-Hunter College job posting for a professor of Palestinian Studies. Hochul also ordered “a thorough review of the position to ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom.”

    The job listing certainly listed plenty of controversial topics, calling for a “historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality.” Yet the very next sentence stated, “We are open to diverse theoretical and methodological approaches.”

    Critics are unlikely to believe that the job was really open to scholars with diverse approaches to whether, say, Israel is an “apartheid” state. Maybe it was, maybe not. But one can’t make that determination simply based on the language of the listing, and there is no reason to believe that the governor of New York is (or should be expected to be) the best-qualified person to make that call.

    Faculty members are supposed to be hired because they are subject-matter experts who have the ability and knowledge in the field to make informed academic judgments. Readers may recall that Winston Churchill famously opined that democracy is “the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” That’s just as true when it comes to academic faculty making academic decisions — like it or not, there are no better alternatives. Even if one believes a particular group of public college faculty is, itself, making decisions that harm higher education, as DeSantis and Hochul both seem to believe, there’s one thing we can know for sure: transferring that job to politicians will only make it worse.

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