Guest AuthorYesterday, the Florida Board of Education Search Committee picked one of Florida’s premier business leaders as their unanimous choice to become the next Chancellor of Florida’s State University System.
The choice was not a surprise except that the search committee made the very best choice that was available to them. While the other three finalists were all highly ranked academicians, none could compete with the knowledge and experience of ATT’s Florida President.
Overall this portends well for Florida’s higher education system because with the quick exit of former Chancellor Frank Brogan for Pennsylvania’s top academic job, the concern in many circles was who would replace the affable, universally respected and politically connected Brogan. Well, in Criser we have someone who clearly comes from the top end of the gene pool: his father is a distinguished attorney who also served as the former President of the University of Florida, the state’s flagship university.
Moreover, at a time when Florida employers are concerned with the quality of our universities’ graduates, we have an employer, a very large employer in fact, who understands all too well what needs to be fixed if we are to compete in the global marketplace. A Florida grad, Marshall has been at the pinnacle of Florida’s business community for quite some time, reaching the private enterprise system’s Holy Grail trifecta: former President of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Council of 100 and Florida TaxWatch.
As well as he is qualified for the job, this is one with tremendous challenges because of the change in higher education governance brought by Gov. Jeb Bush. The platinum standard in Chancellors was Charlie Reed, former Gov. Bob Graham’s Chief of Staff who took the helm at a time of great need among Florida’s universities. His ability to corral the Presidents and to get them to row in the right direction was a feat that hasn’t been matched since.
Yet, Brogan has come closest to the Reed model and Criser has the opportunity to pick up where Brogan left off. That’s because Criser has been intimately involved with higher education through his business association stints and his own desire to make Florida’s higher education system better.
Recently, Sen. Jeremy Ring at the TaxWatch annual board meeting challenged Florida’s business leaders to quit bad mouthing our education system, which isn’t nearly as bad as we profess it to be. He’s right, of course. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. We have a very good higher education system, but we dream of an outstanding system that will compete with the best public universities in the nation.
While many will say what we really need is more money, much more really needs to be done than simply throwing more dollars at our problems. First and foremost we need to keep a college education affordable because a graduate with huge debts and few good-paying jobs is not a recipe for success. It also means that we need to think about creative ways to entice students to complete college in four or even three years rather than the average of six years that is prevalent now. It means that we need to insure that students can think critically to solve problems that we don’t necessarily do well right now.
It means that students must read and comprehend at a level that students in the Far East already attain. It also means that students should be encouraged to take internships, paid or otherwise, to ascertain if the field that they have chosen is really the one for them. And foreign travel, exposure to other cultures and mores is essential to understanding that our country is but one cog, albeit a huge one, in the economic fabric of the planet and that all economies are inter-connected.
Accolades will rain down on the choice of Criser as well they should. Because a strong Chancellor is one who can help re-shape higher education for the inevitable challenges that lie ahead, of which competition among the universities is the most insidious problem. Luckily we have already addressed that issue by designating Florida and Florida State as the preeminent institutions that will be pushed into the top ranks of public universities. Criser now will have the chance to put his good ideas to work for the betterment of all future graduates.
