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(Tenured Radical)

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Three Postcards from Florida

I

UD has often wondered whether the students in Florida's shameful public university system know how ill-served they are. Here's a strong-minded and extremely well-written answer to that question, from the University of Florida student newspaper:



Don't trust [President] Machen
with more student money


Oh, Bernie. He's tried so hard to bring sense to Florida's State University System. UF should be the flagship, he said, a great university that gets national attention. A semiprivate school where students shoulder more tuition because their degree is worth the investment.

That went over great with the state Legislature, huh?

In a system declared a "banana republic" by The Chronicle of Higher Education, UF President Bernie Machen should have known better than to propose a logical solution. When it comes to higher education, most legislators are only interested in putting pet projects at their alma maters and making sure those liberal professors don't corrupt young minds.

Thanks to them, UF has failed to get control of its own tuition in two consecutive legislative sessions. Lawmakers are loath to hand over the power to charge students because high tuition threatens two immensely popular programs - the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship and Florida Prepaid Tuition.

So this session, Bernie's got a new plan.

He wants to charge your little brother or sister an extra $500 a semester - that's $1,000 a year, or a roughly 30 percent increase in cost - to go to UF. It won't be "tuition." It won't be a "fee." It'll just be a charge. That way, Bright Futures and Prepaid don't have to cover it, and legislators can breathe easy about passing it.

Clever, isn't it? Or deceitful, depending on your point of view.

Here at the Alligator, we think the Legislature sucks. We understand why Bernie is flouting the system to get his plan passed. And we want to support him. We really do. Our advisers are nonexistent, our classes are too big, and we'd be willing to shell out a bit more to improve things.

But sadly, the administration has lost our trust.

Our favorite college - Liberal Arts and Sciences - is ripping itself apart over its deficit. Professors are looking for new jobs, and faculty positions in the humanities won't be filled - even as science departments grow. Worst of all, the administration is to blame.

In a Tuesday interview, Machen said he knew about CLAS' overspending before he even became president. But he didn't take action then, and - surprise, surprise - the problem didn't just vanish. Now Machen refuses to get involved. He claims CLAS is an issue separate from his plan to raise tuition. But it's not, and he's losing it if he thinks he can pull that one over on us.

UF's basic problem is one of resources - faculty, more than anything. CLAS' five-year plan calls for cuts to faculty as the primary method of saving money. Tell us, how will this reduce our teacher-student ratio? How will this raise UF's prestige among its peers? We're facing a damn diaspora.

Machen has his head in the sand if he thinks the CLAS issue will go away. He's at fault for not getting to the bottom of it. For not having a dean who could recognize a disaster when he sees one. For not hiring a provost in less than two years, for God's sake.

We wish we could tell you that Machen's plan for the university will be a good one in the end. That he's the right person to bring sanity to Florida's higher education, to save us from being the laughingstock of the nation.

But we can't. We can't get over his basic managerial incompetence. Until he does something about CLAS - gets involved, saves it from doom - we can't support his Orwellian "academic enhancement" plan. You shouldn't either.



II

'Time for a vote of no confidence from the Board of Trustees. FIU's President for Life [Mitch] Maidique's incompetence makes the International Herald Tribune.

Another open letter to Mitch, this time about the ridiculous football team and its scholar/athletes [see Postcard #3, below]. Mitch has a base salary of $462, 608. He received a bonus of $80,000 this fall for his splendid work. He gets a $9000 car stipend, a $5000 medical checkup stipend, a $10,000 legal stipend, and so on. His one-year sabbatical clause lets him take off work while receiving the same salary--faculty can't do that. He lives in a free Presidential McMansion on campus. His first-class junkets to Paris, his limos to Vero Beach, are well-documented. He purchased 2000 shares of Carnival stock, an insider transaction, last month for $97, 260. On the same day he acquired 36, 024 shares of National Semiconductor. He had a good month evidently. In 2003, before the latest acquisitions, he owned over $5 million in securities. He won't starve. Cut him loose.'



III

'Dear Mitch, I wanted you to know why I won't be in the stadium Nov. 11 when Florida International University plays its next home football game.
It's not that I'm busy. Nor do I fear for my safety — the stadium will be well-policed, and players seldom enter the stands.
But though I've been active in FIU support groups and still am, I've long believed that a fine urban university is stepping out of its league by trying to be a football powerhouse, a concern heightened by mayhem with the University of Miami.
Miami long has been criticized for the thuggery of players who are students in name only. President Donna Shalala may be powerless to put her program into perspective although Dean Colson, chairman of the UM trustees, wrote last week, "I am convinced that the benefits of a strong Division 1 athletic program outweigh the negatives, but I am probably not as sure of that conviction today as I was just a little over a week ago."
But Mitch, unlike the University of Miami, FIU is a newcomer to football and can still shift course.
In 2003, when FIU decided to dump a successful soccer program to help fund big-time football, I quoted your then-athletic director, Rick Mello: "We, as a university, have decided to use athletics as a vehicle to enhance campus life, draw alumni back, guarantee outside revenue and increase media exposure, and football gives us the best opportunity to do those things."
Football did in fact get FIU increased media exposure, Mitch, though not what you wanted.
I'm not big on combat movies, so I haven't watched the numerous television replays of the fighting between the teams two weeks ago. But I seem to be in the minority. They made national headlines. Take this start of a San Diego sports column:
"Florida International University? Never heard of it. The University of Miami? Definitely heard of its TV show — "CSI: UMiami.'"
Do a Google search for "Florida International University football fighting," and you'll find 35,200 references — almost exactly one per student. Our report on repairing images after the mayhem was the top-read story last week at miamitodaynews.com, where users aren't looking for sports scores.
So football has put FIU on the radar — for violence.
It's a hot topic locally, too. I had lunch Friday with three of the four county officers who run the Police Athletic League. Embarrassingly, they had a group of youngsters at the FIU-UM game. They used the fighting to teach the kids, who come from underprivileged homes, about inappropriate behavior.'



---from miami today ---