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“An Accent on Learning, Accentuated by Excellence: A Brief Overview of the History of the University of South Florida System” Remarks Delivered at the September 2014 Meeting of the USF University Board of Trustees University Student Center, University of South Florida St. Petersburg 4 September 2014, 9:30 a.m. by James Anthony Schnur University Librarian, Poynter Library, USF St. Petersburg

TITLE SLIDE Good morning. It is an honor to be here to provide a brief overview of the history of governance within the University of South Florida System, from our institution’s establishment in 1956 to recent years. CURRENT VIEWS (3) Throughout its history, the University of South Florida has served as a pioneer and leader in our rapidly evolving state. As Russell M. Cooper and Margaret B. Fisher noted in their 1982 history of our institution, the University of South Florida was the first university of its kind to be conceived, designed, and constructed from scratch in the 20th century.1

OLD MAP It is hard to believe, but in the year 1900, Florida had a population of less than 530,000, by far the smallest of any Southern state. At that time, Florida was the only state east of the Mississippi to lack a comprehensive system of public higher education. PRE‐BUCKMAN There were a few seminaries and small institutions—many of them could have fit in this room—but it was not until the passage of the 1905 Buckman Act (named for Senator Henry Holland Buckman), BROWARD that Florida truly had a system of higher learning. 1908 AD One of the controversial parts of this law was the re‐location of the “University of the State of Florida” from Lake City to Gainesville, where it became the University of Florida, an institution for white males only at the time. UF The controversy was not that the school lacked co‐educational classes; instead, it was that many people believed Gainesville was too far south along the peninsula for the state’s single university.

FSU The Buckman Act also created the Florida State College for Women, a college for white women that became Florida State University in the late 1940s, and a co‐

1 See: Russell M. Cooper and Margaret B. Fisher, The Vision of a Contemporary University: A Case Study of Expansion and Development in American Higher Education, 1950‐1975, Tampa: University Presses of Florida, 1982. 2

educational normal school for non‐white students that became Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. FAMU A Board of Control oversaw higher education and also doubled as the State Plant Board.

MIAMI NEWS 2 IMAGES A little‐known fact is that we are actually the second “University of South Florida” created by the Florida legislature. In 1943, a state senator from the Panhandle city of Marianna won passage of a bill to create a university in the Miami area with the same name that would have had colleges of medicine, dentistry, and pharmaceutical studies and would have trained doctors to fight tropical diseases. Although the bill to create this first “USF” passed, it was never implemented because of the demands of the Second World War and an untenable plan to fund the school by closing down UF’s law school, something other lawmakers—many of them UF alumni—would never have supported.

COED Our institution was conceived during the postwar years that rapidly transformed Florida. Our state’s population soared as newcomers arrived and settled along the peninsula during the 1950s. Although legislators from rural north Florida dominated in the capitol, no longer could they ignore the demands for expanded educational opportunities in urban areas. COLLINS At this time, Governor LeRoy Collins had led the push for a statewide system of junior and community colleges. Collins also signed the legislation that Representative Sam Gibbons GIBBONS was able to get other lawmakers to approve that created Florida’s fourth public university, then unnamed, and awarded it to an undetermined site in Hillsborough County. UT At one point in 1956, the plan to create this university amounted to an attempt to purchase the University of Tampa’s campus along the Hillsborough River and make it a public institution. Can you imagine the parking dilemmas if that had happened?

HENDERSON Finally, after much debate, nearly 1,700 acres of the northern portion of Henderson Field, a World War II military airfield, became the location of our university. FOWLER Considering that the Tampa Bay region is not in southern Florida, the name chosen by consensus: “University of South Florida,” SEAL was viewed by some as a sign from Tallahassee that this would be the last new university for a long time. BILLBOARD Of course, the use of yellow bricks 3

rather than red ones on the first USF campus buildings also gave a sign: one of a young and vibrant campus not tied to old traditions.

ALLEN Under President John S. Allen, the institution quickly took shape. A corps of young and ambitious faculty flocked to the campus rising around anthills and sandspurs. AERIAL They came to the first fully air‐conditioned public university in Florida, they served a charter class of 1,997 students in September 1960 that were frequently the first members of their family to attend college, and they established academic traditions that focused on USF’s “Accent on Learning.” CONVOCATION 2 IMGS

There were challenges during the early years. When USF became the first public university aside from FAMU to admit an African American undergraduate student, Ernest P. Boger, a 1961 graduate of Tampa’s Blake High School, some white citizens demanded Allen’s termination. JOHNS COMM In 1962 and 1963, President Allen, the USF faculty, and students faced another serious threat: A group of lawmakers supportive of racial segregation, conducted secret investigations of USF in a McCarthyite fashion, threatening academic freedom and claiming the University was corrupting its students with allegedly “trashy and pornographic” works like Brave New World and The Grapes of Wrath. At the time, USF had no alumni to speak in its defense, and some north Florida lawmakers wanted to shut our school down for good or make it a junior college because they had never wanted an urban university in the first place. ALLEN RESPONDS While the Johns Committee’s investigations had caused extensive damage at UF, FSU, and FAMU during the late 1950s, the Committee failed to remove President Allen or destroy the University; indeed, USF actually accelerated the Committee’s demise in 1965 and, after legislative reapportionment, a new Board of Regents replaced the Board of Control as the oversight body for Florida’s public universities.

ORIGINAL TPA LIB The high school class of 1965 posed another problem for Allen and USF. The University had accepted more of these baby boomer graduates than 4

it had room for, and a few hundred needed a place to sleep. FIRST WAVE EXPAN By this point, enrollment was approaching 7,000 students and a new wave of construction opened many new classroom buildings. NEW SCI BLDG Still, there was no room in the overcrowded dorms.

SUNDRY Allen and others solved this problem on July 1, 1965, when USF took possession of the former US Maritime Service Training Station, BASE now home to USF’s College of Marine Science, and created the Bay Campus. Later known as the “Bayboro Campus,” this site became the first true branch campus in the State University System, a model for the two‐plus‐two partnerships with two year colleges that our state has received national acclaim for, with its upper‐level and limited graduate programs beginning in 1968. USFSP 5 IMGS Allen continued to offer courses on this side of Tampa Bay even before the legislature granted full approval in 1969 as a way to protect our institution’s presence in the region. Over the next half century, the Bayboro Campus would evolve into the present‐day, separately accredited USF St. Petersburg.

ALLEN By the time John Allen tendered his resignation on July 4, 1970, USF had grown beyond anyone’s expectations. COE In less than fifteen years, the school transformed from an idea to a marketplace for ideas, an institution with more than 16,000 students, 800 faculty, and plans in the works for colleges of Medicine and Nursing. Expansion of professional programs and the diversification of graduate curriculum was the hallmark of Allen’s successor, Cecil M. Mackey MACKEY.

SOC, CPR During the early and mid‐1970s, the creation of professional programs at USF Tampa under President Mackey led to a newfound emphasis on research and scholarship, as well as a stronger focus on STEM disciplines rather than traditional liberal arts offerings. TUTTLE Meanwhile, Lester Tuttle, USF St. Petersburg’s first administrator, assumed a new role as the Vice President of Regional Campus Affairs, traveling up and down the Tamiami Trail between St. Petersburg and southwest Florida to oversee the creation of our second branch 5

campus, USF Fort Myers, which opened in September 1974. USF‐FM 2IMGS That same year, the State of Florida, USF, and the Trustees of New College—formerly a private educational institution—reached an agreement that made New College the state’s public honors college and gave oversight to USF. USF‐SM By 1975, separate programs at USF’s Sarasota campus, now USFSM, also began offering upper‐level and limited graduate programs to working adults in Sarasota and Manatee counties.

BROWN BORKOWSI CASTOR Growth on all campuses continued under USF Presidents John Lott Brown, Francis T. Borkowski, and Betty Castor. A rich economy during the 1970s and 1980s allowed for the rapid expansion of USF Tampa’s physical plant NEW TPA LIB and the Board of Regents approved many new majors. USFSP PHASE I A diversity of course offerings and innovative programs—many in distance education such as USF’s Open University and Bachelor of Independent Studies—opened doors for countless working adults.

CASTOR Betty Castor’s tenure as USF President during the 1990s marked an important transitional moment in the institution’s history, as well as a change in Florida’s political governance of public universities. A former county commissioner, legislator, director of governmental and community relations at USF, and state Commissioner of Education, President Castor was not just the first woman to serve as USF’s top executive—she assumed these duties as new rounds of budget reductions required sage political leadership and an ability to lobby for the institution in the halls of the capitol. 3 IMGS Betty Castor used her political skills to strengthen the University’s presence and to preserve programs during challenging times.

GENSHAFT USF’s earlier history is amazing, but the true maturation of our institution and the establishment of the University of South Florida System is the legacy of President Judy Genshaft—the longest serving President of our University—UBOT as well as the University Board of Trustees and individual 6

Campus Boards.. President Genshaft arrived in 2000, at a time of great political uncertainty in Florida. SULLIVAN Some lawmakers unhappy with the Board of Regents had abolished that oversight body, creating our present system of Trustees and Board of Governors. Local lawmakers pushed for more autonomy for USFSP. 2 CROWS NEST During this pivotal moment, a time of uncertain transition and without historical precedent, President Genshaft and the University Board of Trustees moved USF forward. WITH JEB

We are a different institution, and a much stronger one. USFSP and USFSM attained separate SACS accreditation in 2006 and 2011, respectively. USFSP USFSM No longer mere “branch campuses,” these institutions have well‐defined structures in place ensuring that administrative, academic, and co‐curricular initiatives reflect the needs of their communities. MULTIPLE USF TAMPA The transformations at USF Tampa since 2000 are spectacular, with a newfound emphasis on graduate programs and research, a reinvigorated campus, and classes of incoming freshmen and transfer students that continue to rank at incredibly high levels when compared with their peers at competitive institutions. The expansion of programs in USF Health, as well as other STEM academic programs and high‐tech initiatives across the USF System, assure that the our institution prepares the next generation of leaders in business, industry, and technology in high‐demand areas. The diversity of the student body at all USF System institutions is another important hallmark, and proof of our success in opening doors that had once been closed. The USF System of today serves as a national—indeed, international—model of educational excellence.

USFSP DIG ARCHIVE PAGE I started taking classes at the University of South Florida in the fall of 1986. I am a three‐time “Bull,” very proud of my alma mater and very thankful for the educational experience provided to me. Thank you for allowing me to share this history of the USF System.