The year was 1988. Frank Borkowski was the new president of USF. He had succeeded John Lott Brown. In his inaugural speech, he spoke in the elevated tones requisite for such occasions. It was no time, to be sure, for modest goals. So, Borkowski referenced USF’s manifest potential. In fact, he could foresee this major-market, 28-year-old institution of higher education among the nation’s top 25 public universities. Applause, nods and smiles all around.
And then a come-to-Jesus moment.
Charlie Reed, Florida’s State University System chancellor, was not impressed. Nor was he subtle. In effect, who did Borkowski think he was with such an inappropriately aggressive goal? USF was a regional university. Didn’t even have a football team, let alone a law school that could prep the next generation of legislators. Did it not know its place? If anyone were going to aspire to such lofty heights it would be the system’s flagship university in Gainesville, the University of Florida, thank you. And, by the way, welcome to the Sunshine State.
Well, a lot has certainly changed in the system, as well as at USF. But there is still, of course, a pecking order. UF is still the biggest and most distinguished university in the system. And it has earned it. But that reality, it seems, has been reinforced in ways that hearken back to that respect-challenged, Reed-Borkowski dust-up.
Recall that UF President Bernie Machen was more than a neutral observer last year when that whole JD Alexander-driven USF Poly folly was coming down. Tallahassee didn’t side with USF. Neither did Machen. The UF president was also courted successfully–and unprecedentedly–by Gov. Rick Scott to defer his retirement and continue his presidency. Part of that courtship was an exclusive $15 million grant to UF to beef up its faculty hiring. It’s part of the means to the end of making Florida an elite university, the system’s lone such luminary candidate.
We get that, but there are better ways of upgrading. Ask FSU, not just USF. Higher education in Florida needs a rising tide, not canal locks to accommodate the first among unequals. Frank Borkowski found that out 25 years ago. That unnecessarily divisive message still echoes.