Ben Sasse next UF president?

Meh. Terrible. What?

 

Excellent article and, for years, I have believed the position he is taking here. He is 100% right and I believe this considering my own learning style as it related to HS, college and, now, real life. I know it based on my own college/work life experience. I know it after spending 20 yrs in higher ed textbook/ed-tech publishing.

 

I will take a stab at responding to your question as someone that leans conservative on fiscal issues.

I truly do not care what anyone elects to major in once they are aware of all the relevant facts. I believe that is the general consensus of fiscally conservative persons. The ire against such degrees from what I have read and discussed comes from requests to use tax dollars to pay back debt incurred in acquiring such degrees. My view, shared by other fiscally conservative folks, is don’t ask me to pay your student loan back (via taxes or otherwise) when you choose to study in fields where the employment market is limited at best and virtually nonexistent at worst. And certainly don’t ask me to pay your student loans back if you claim you were misled by the school about employment prospects in your chosen field of study and/or the costs of obtaining the degree, yet as part of the reimbursement program there is absolutely no plan to fix the system —thus perpetuating the problem by rewarding the institutions ostensibly engaging in the deleterious and deceptive practices.

And, for the future of our economy, I think there should be an emphasis on STEM fields —not woman studies, philosophy or other liberal art majors. STEM is the future.

That being said, I certainly believe there is a place for classic liberal arts education. But if you are going to ask me to pay or subsidize your education I then have a say in how you chose to spend the funds paying for your education. And I AM a UF liberal arts college graduate! But I had a scholarship at UF and paid back every penny of the loans I took obtaining a graduate degree.

As far as the UF President selection, my approach is wait and see. I welcome whoever is selected and intend to give them the benefit of the doubt (at least initially).

 

Everyone keeps saying he is too young at 50. Lombardi was 48 when he became President, wasn’t he. And he appears to be the last UF president the consensus actually liked.

 

Comment section isn’t going well on the Twitter announcement.

UF espouses progressive values, with liberal students and faculty, in a liberal town, and it shouldn’t be surprising that folks are upset that a politician that is in direct opposition to their beliefs would be chosen to lead the university they love.

The conservative rebuttal is basically that the left should be tolerant of intolerance.

 

I have been on multiple search committees for deans. Under Florida’s sunshine law you have to announce finalists. Anybody who is a finalist but not selected faces being publicly rejected and having their employer knowing they want to leave. Many qualified candidates will bail at that prospect. The committee had other finalists but this is the choice. If this blows up we will see another finalist. Unlikely.

He is about the same age as Limbardi, jfk,, clinton, w bush, Lincoln and Obama. Rather him be 50 than 60, or worse 70s like our last 2 presidential candidates.

 

Lol. Yes on university campuses there should be no diversity of thought. And, as you point out, it must be the conservatives who are intolerant on campuses regarding free speech, etc. and divergent views. Oh wait. It is generally the opposite.


But if Sasse inputs his political views, engages in censorship or otherwise interferes with the university community in such a way as those with different sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. objectively/reasonably feel uncomfortable, then he should be terminated. For now, I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows the difference between being a US Senator, an inherently political position and that of a university president, an apolitical position.
And I will be the first to say he has to go if he makes the position political.

 

Home run hire.

 

According to what I have read, and maybe I do not understand it correctly, the Board of Trustees (which I think is also referred to as the Board of Directors in some places like the NBC article quoted below) has to approve the search committee recommendation. However, the selection then has to be approved by the Board of Governors before it is official. That Board of Governors is handpicked by the governor (and actually, so is more than half of the Board of Trustees). So, "by law" does the governor have to approve the selection? However, there is no chance that Sasse would have made it out of the vetting process without DeSantis' approval, and would never be approved by the Board of Governors without his blessing.

Republican Sen. Ben Sasse expected to resign from Congress

 

I don't disagree, I guess a better classification would be vertebrate.

 

As a person who has an admin-type position (unnamed) with UF that interacts with most every department on campus, your assessment of faculty is hilarious and spot on.

 

I agree that if he confuses being president with being a politician he will need to go. I think he is much smarter and more committed to higher Ed than that.

I have no idea what your first paragraph is talking about? It references opinions I didn’t state about Sasse. But for the record - being intolerant of intolerance is different from being intolerant. A difference exists between one who rejects others for their skin color/faith/gender and one who rejects people who practice bigotry.

 

I’ve nothing against this guy nor do I care what political party he is in.

Last few presidents were:

-Provost for John’s Hopkins
-Chancellor of UCLA
-President of Utah
-Provost of Cornell

Seems like a pretty big step down in preparation for the job that Ben is bringing. If I got the timeline right…

- Part time professor at UT
- Full time at UT for one year before taking a 3 year unpaid leave to work in HHS
- One more year at UT after HHS as Professor
- 4 years as President at struggling Midland

WTF? Seems smart and accomplished just not in academia leadership. It’s a gamble.

 

A couple of points on this:

Sasse's "academic experience" wasn't even a full time post and it lasted for a year. That is quite thin for claiming that this isn't a political appointee.

A big part of a Presidential choice is signaling. For example, brining Fuchs out of the Ivy League was a statement of purpose for UF getting into the elite. He didn't really get UF there through strength of leadership. It was heavily about the faculty and student base, but the signal helps in recruitment of both.

For a university that has been accused of political meddling with it's faculty by members of its faculty, a political appointee, especially one who would likely politically agree with that meddling, seems like a pretty bad signal. He is going to come in on the defensive with faculty at a University that has traditionally spurned political appointees.

 

Is his record on gay rights and women's issues a concern with respect to how he will run UF?

 

Thanks - I wasn't sure how the legislation worked in relation to the selection process. According to DeSantis's new bill, candidates remain confidential until they become finalists. So it makes sense that there were perhaps others. You're right about Lombardi (I think 48), but Machen & Fuchs were 60. Perhaps I'm alarmed that we might now have a UF prez who is younger than I. Not sure what POTUS has to do with it.