Letters to the editor: USF Sarasota-Manatee, Gov. Scott’s promises and Kavanaugh hearings
Save USF Sarasota-Manatee
On Tuesday, over 150 community members came to the town hall meeting of the USF System Consolidation Task Force. Business leaders, faculty, students and long time supporters spoke out for keeping campus autonomy threatened by legislative action last session. Too bad the community had no chance to speak out before the language appeared in an omnibus higher education bill.
I came to head up USFSM in 2000 with Judy Genshaft’s direction to grow the campus for the benefit of our region and students. It was a daunting task with only 12 full-time faculty, no academic program autonomy, inadequate facilities and students scrambling to finish degrees.
With legislative, business, and donor support, our campus leadership with USF System support built the campus, grew the faculty to nearly 90 fulltime offering 44 regionally relevant degrees and certificates, became a separately accredited four-year institution, founded the College of Hospitality, grew a 200+ student STEM program in partnership with Mote Marine and so many other accomplishments.
So why are we turning back this progress? And who will benefit? It’s clear from Tuesday’s two-hour testimony these questions haven’t been answered or even asked.
Town hall speakers extolled USFSM responsiveness to workforce needs, its unique small campus student experience, its exciting academic vision and importance to the region’s higher education fabric.
These results were made possible with local autonomy enacted through separate accreditation.
Let’s admit that we didn’t fully understand what consolidation would mean and ask our legislative delegation to commit to reversing this decision.
We have elections coming up with early voting in a few weeks. I urge every USFSM supporter to ask candidates to help save our campus autonomy for the benefit of our students and communities.
Laurey Stryker
University Park
Don’t be like Trump, Gov. Scott
We Florida citizens haven’t forgotten about the terror and horror that happened at Pulse and are still mourning the loss the innocent people who died that night. We also haven’t forgotten about Governor Scott’s promise to protect state employees from LGBT discrimination.
You don’t have to even be a member of the gay community, or even know someone in it to care deeply about all humans’ rights. I’m Christian and very involved in my retirement community. Even though many of us usually vote Republican, we are getting fed up with the party, just frankly, lying left and right and taking back promises.
Governor Scott must do the right thing here and he’ll keep our votes. But if he adopts Trump’s ways of baiting and switching, especially in emotional matters like this, well, we’ll have no other choice than to vote for the other candidate.
Kazuko McCall
Palmetto
Do voters really want change?
I watched the entire testimony of Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh at Thursday’s Judiciary Committee hearing. My hope was that the Senate had evolved since the Clarence Thomas hearings. I’m not sure if that was the case, but suffice it to say it wasn’t a proud moment for Congress. The partisanship and divisiveness that is so prevalent now were on full display.
It is not, however, a surprise where that partisanship comes from. A YouGov survey released two days after the hearing showed that 73 percent of Democrats believed Ford’s testimony, and 74 percent of Republicans believed Kavanaugh. Independents were evenly split with 33 percent believing Ford and 33 percent believing Kavanaugh. So, is the key determining factor in the decision on who to believe one’s party affiliation? Based on this poll it appears that is the case!
How sad or maybe even horrifying. This nomination is about an appointment to the Supreme Court, the one branch that absolutely must be above politics. I realize that hasn’t always been the case, but it should be. Instead tribalism is taking over almost every aspect of government. What is perceived, and what is believed seems not to be based on one’s values, but rather on what group or tribe one identifies with.
We can slam the members of Congress for getting nothing done, and believe me I do, but maybe our representatives are just doing what the voters want. I don’t know how many of the people in the YouGov poll actually voted, but I do know that, collectively, voters have the ability to change our political dysfunction. The real question is do they want to? Or are they so blinded by their own beliefs that they refuse to consider that the other side could also be right once in a while.
Doug Broberg
Bradenton
Kavanaugh charges ‘embarrassing’
As I watched the Kavanaugh hearings I, like many, others shed a tear for both parties.
It’s embarrassing that an unconfirmed issue like this took so long to come to the fore front of the committee. It’s also very suspicious how it was totally mishandled by some of our elected officials.
So I ask you; is this political circus really over Kavanaugh and Ford or is it smoke to cover up to gain political power and control of our country? What a lot of people don’t think about is the political party in control in Washington controls how much money goes into your pocket. Keep this in mind in the looming U.S. mid-term election coming up shortly.
R. Petty
Bradenton
This story was originally published October 3, 2018 at 9:03 AM.