MANATEE — Elizabeth Larkin earned her undergraduate degree in French literature, but she didn’t want to teach French.

She didn’t want to join the diplomatic corps or become a translator.

It was almost by accident that she stumbled upon a lifelong passion for teaching after stepping into a classroom for the first time.

“I love kids, I think they’re infinitely fascinating,” said Larkin in her cozy office on the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, just north of the intersection at University Parkway and U.S. 41.

Earlier this month, the professor of childhood education and literacy studies was elected the first president of the newly created USF Faculty Advisory Council. It is composed of faculty representatives from all USF institutions, including universities at Sarasota-Manatee, St. Petersburg, and Tampa and Lakeland Polytechnic.

Her election also means that she will join USF’s Board of Trustees.

“I was away all summer, teaching in Jamaica, blissfully unaware of everything,” Larkin explained about her sudden ascension. “When I got back, a colleague wanted to put my name in for president because it would make a statement of change, not just the same old story of Tampa representing everyone.

“The three other campuses did not feel they were getting much of a voice; the way to change was to put in a different candidate,” added Larkin, 63, a resident of Whitfield Estates.

The vote was 9-8, with those from regional campuses in Sarasota-Manatee, St. Pete and Lakeland supporting Larkin, and those representing the main Tampa campus voting for her opponent.

“Liz is very open, and wants everyone’s opinion and ideas,” said colleague Ross Alander, senior lecturer in management studies in the College of Business at USF Sarasota-Manatee.

“She stresses that she represents all faculty on all campuses, and I know that she will do that. It is not and shouldn’t be about egos.”

Larkin is particularly insistent on how to best meet students’ needs: Everything and everyone must support that objective, Alander said of her.

“The students are why we all here! That is teaching,” he said, adding, “She is the best!”

Larkin’s election comes at a time when USF is evolving from a university with a large main campus and three small branches to a system of separately accredited institutions that operate with increased autonomy.

“I am committed to helping create a process to function as a system,” explained Larkin. “It’s four institutions now, instead of a sun with three little satellites.”

She called the effort “blazing a new trail.”

She hopes it will lead to a flowering of creativity at her own and other USF institutions as well, perhaps as a partnership with Mote Marine Laboratory or maybe interdisciplinary programs, like business paired with education, or early childhood education paired with special education.

“People are really exploring what new things we could do,” she said. “There’s lot of faculty expertise that has not been tapped because we were constrained by what Tampa had.”

Larkin seems an unlikely challenger of the status quo.

Diminutive, soft-spoken and smiling, she is a grandmother of four who likes to kayak in the local waterways and putter in the garden in her spare time.

Academically, she has long been interested in intergenerational studies, and is planning a United Nations conference next year on the subject. Oh, yes, and there’s a book in the works, too.

For years, she and her husband Stephen Graves, who also is a professor of education at USF, have taught each summer in Jamaica.

Still, as active and satisfying as her professional life is, she does look forward to retirement eventually for family reasons.

She hopes she can make birthday parties for her grandchildren, who live in other states.

“The first year we retire will be the ‘Year of the Birthdays,’ ” she laughed.

— The St. Petersburg Times contributed to this report.