Ben Sasse next UF president?

It isnt the students. It's the staff. Lose the best professors, lose the funding, lose the ranking

 

I don't want professors who can't handle the most milquetoast and mild of Republicans in an administrative role. They are obviously not emotionally stable enough to be entrusted with the minds of the young if they are too soft and broken to cope through it.

 

Who gets to define hate on a major college campus? 18 year olds?

 

I’ve never understood the line of thinking that one should tolerate intolerant views.

It’s just a fact that a percentage of people aren’t straight, and opposing it just seems silly.

So long as people are consenting and not breaking laws, live and let live.

 

what about when a presiding presidents views are in direct conflict with some of the values the university says it stands for, that in part has attracted its staff?

Regardless if you feel they are snowflakes, they are workers who have the option of leaving for job environments that suits them better, just like the rest of us do.

 

Seriously - when was the last time a corporation hired a CEO with only 5 years experience in that industry?

 

If his views regarding gay marriage or abortion will not affect his decisions as president, that is basically textbook tolerance.

And that’s without even getting into the merits of the traditionalist view of marriage, which I may disagree with but acknowledge as legitimate.

 

C&P from exchange elsewhere. Much has already been expressed


Well just to clarify, I am evaluating his appointment along two lines. The first is the capacity to screw up Republican Senate plans. That was what I thought was the unequivocal good. I still don’t think it could help but I think the capacity for his untimely resignation to screw their ability to maximize Senate power is less than I thought. Sounds like he’s not committed to resigning in December. I read that as the fact that he will time his resignation to make sure it does not interfere with their plans to vote on an organizing resolution in the event they need his vote. That was my primary consideration in being happy about his appointment. I still think it’s screws them up a bit but not near as much as I hoped.

In terms of his actual performance as the University President, I don’t really have a strong opinion on that. It’s hard for me to foresee any individual being a successful university president in this current state political atmosphere, in which state political leadership seems intent on devaluing education. In that regard I still think Sasse is preferable to Corcoran, who is on board with the philosophical attack on the concept of public education. I don’t know where Sasse falls on that but I had it find a hard to believe he would be as philosophically committed to undervalue the concept as the rest of Florida’s political leadership is. it’s good to outside the Florida GOP in that regard, which is philosophically poisoned at this point. Anyone that has been in state Republican leadership the last decade has marinated in a stew of entitlement actualism. Maybe that’s been the case in Nebraska as well but I know it’s the case here.

At the same time, I still think it would be hard for anyone to succeed, even a strong outsider, unless the state decides it actually values public education. North Carolina and Virginia are the rare exceptions of states that put a value on higher education from the outset and created a culture that did not get undermine by subsequent backwards leadership. But even Wisconsin, which had a similar tradition and commitment, has been undermined by Republicans, since the Koch’s installed Scott Walker. The problem is Republicans. Florida is trending more and more red, and we have no tradition of supporting higher education. I don’t think any university president can overcome that.

There has to be a state political culture that values higher education. If not I don’t think it matters who is appointed. I think Sasse will do a lot less damage than Corcoran, but the problem ultimately lies with us, with the populace. For reasons I don’t understand I don’t think I ever could, the state seems to be going more and more red. Friends in some other campaigns tell me that while their private polling is not as bad as Mason Dixon, things are getting worse by the day. The state is becoming Alabama/Mississippi.

 

2016

 

Do you think the majority of students applying to UF research each and every professor?
I think that’s a bit much.
When I applied to UF for PA school I didn’t give one crap about researching any of the professors, I just wanted to get in, it was a good school close to home and far cheaper than out of state and private schools.

I think most 18 years don’t have the energy to research individual professors, let alone make decisions on if they go to a school based on such things..

 

The top 5 ranking is a great thing, but was UF bad when it was top 10 or top 15?Its not like we are talking about dropping to the level of the clown college to the west.

 

Matters more when a department is filling faculty vacancies, agree that probably not too much to most undergraduates. I think it matters much more to graduate students. Also the ranking and reputation of the professional schools (law, medicine) affects which students go where - matters a lot.
Should always aim to improve- work towards excellence.We will know in time if Sasse was a good choice.

 

Five years total experience? What hire was that?
Point is - it seems ridiculous for one of the largest and highest ranked public institutions of higher learning in the world to hire a guy with almost 0 experience.
And he has NO experience as an administrator at a public university. ZERO.
I don't care about the politics at this point - many of the leaders in higher ed that make it that far actually end up being more conservative - especially at UF - you'd be surprised.
I'm not even saying Sasse isn't a good fundraiser or politician. He may be excellent at both of those things - but it doesn't mean he knows jack shit about running a huge public institution with 15,000 faculty and staff and 56,000 students.

 

POTUS

 

i don’t think it will personally effect his work, but I do think it’s a reality that people look to work at places that actually share the same ideals, and if DeSantis and Co keep meddling with UF and using it as a pawn for their “anti-woke” agenda, it will have a negative effect on the institution..

 

Im an academic who doesn’t know anything about corporations, but I somehow got the impression that hiring CEOs that are “leaders” of other fields isn’t so rare. It’s as if being a leader is seen as a career.

 

The Path To Becoming A Fortune 500 CEO
I don't want to derail the conversation - picking CEO as an example muddies the water a bit - the point is we don't normally promote people to the highest levels of executive leadership unless they have proven experience or results in an industry or adjacent industry. Sasse doesn't have that.

Doesn't mean he won't be OK - but let's not pretend this was a homerun just because he was a senator. It's a different type of job.

 

So the university formed a presidential search committee. I have been part of those and would assume this committee is made up of people with
a vested interest in who is picked, diverse backgrounds, understanding of what the position will require. I think it is safe to say that the faculty has a representative on his committee… probably several.
This committee looked at over 700 possible candidates including some that are sitting presidents of universities right now.
Ease was the unanimous first choice.
Given all of that I have to say that I trust that this committee has a much firmer grasp on what the position requires and exactly what Sasse brings to the table. At least far more than any of us.

 

I take your point. I also think being a president and an academic are very different jobs, so I don’t think a chemist or philosopher are homeruns either. I guess I’ll just default to the hiring committee, as I really don’t know what a good president hire is.

 

The open forum is going to be a doozy